Tag: Reddit

Reddit Shuts Down Controversial /r/jailbait Subreddit

If you aren’t familiar with Reddit, let me attempt to explain it to you in the simplest of terms: Reddit is an online community built around the aggregation of all things internet. This includes news, photos, user-generated content and more, all user-submitted. What makes it to the “front page” of Reddit is determined by the amount of votes each post acquires. Registered users can upvote and downvote each individual submission. Its slogan is “the front page of the internet.”

Reddit is a massive beast, and it contains thousands of individual “subreddits” – basically a system used to categorize the topics of the millions of posts. Some of the more mainstream and recognizable subreddits (identified as reddit.com/r/_______ ) include /r/pics, /r/gaming /r/askreddit and /r/politics.

But being such a large and diverse community, the subreddits extend far beyond the general and mainstream to the super-specific and obscure. There are subreddits called /r/bonsai, /r/starcraft, /r/bicycling and /r/dwarffortress. And those are just the tip of the iceberg – there are thousands of individual subreddits covering topics you would never dream existed.

This brings us to /r/jailbait.

/r/jailbait is a subreddit that houses photos of young girls, usually aged anywhere from 15 to 18 (although most are under 18). The photos feature the girls in suggestive poses or wearing suggestive clothing – oftentimes both. The key thing about /r/jailbait is that the girls are never nude – maybe in a bikini, or covering themselves up with something – but never fully nude.

The point of /r/jailbait is obviously to see young girls in a sexually suggestive context, there’s no getting around that.

I should say that the point was to see the girls in this context, because as of Monday afternoon, the subreddit no longer exists. It has been shut down because it “threatens to structural integrity of the greater reddit community.”

There are a couple of things that might have contributed to Reddit yanking /r/jailbait. The first, and most obvious reason has to be the recent attention that the site has been getting in the national media. This is due, in large part, to CNN’s Anderson Cooper. He discussed /r/jailbait on his nightly news show last month –

This led to quite a bit of Anderson Cooper discussion within the Reddit community. There was a lot a vitriol towards the anchor regarding his reddit slam, although some Redditors defended him. The oddest thing to come out of the Anderson Cooper thing was the creation of the subreddit /r/cooperjailbait, which, among other things, features Anderson Cooper photoshopped with or on images of young girls.

The other thing that probably had a big influence in Reddit shutting down /r/jailbait is a particular post made to the subreddit on Monday. A user posted a photo to /r/jailbait with the heading “Repost of An Ex (She was 14 here).” The photo in question was the normal scantily clad fare that used to adorn the jailbait subreddit.

But in the comments, the poster said that “this is the only non nude photo I have of her.” That prompted tons of users to request to see the nude pics in the subcomments. They suggested that the user private message them, another user saying, “I WILL BE YOUR BEST FRIEND FOREVER, BRO.”

Screenshots of the exchange began to show up on other subreddits, like /r/wtf. Here’s the conversation in question –

On one of the posts that pointed to the “dozens of reddit posters hounding the OP for nude images of the child,” a moderator for the /r/jailbait subreddit addressed the concerns of other redditors (and yes, his name is “I_RAPE_PEOPLE”):

It’s possible that this incident was what led to the ultimate shutdown of /r/jailbait.

Today, Redditors have been sounding off about the shutdown of /r/jailbait. One front page discussion is titled “Reddit has entered a new age.” Here’s what the thread creator, Robamaton has to say:

For better or for worse, Reddit has moved from a non-interventionist to a policing organization. We’ve been expecting this for some time, but here it is, folks!

Maybe we should start a poll on which sub-reddit will next be deemed to be “threatening the structural integrity of the greater reddit community.”

EDIT: Yes, I know this is not the first time they took something down. However, this is an issue that Reddit has been debating for a while, and the Admins had for a long time responded by stressing our values of Free Speech. Whether you agree with it or not, it is a major shift in policy.

A response to this from frederid reads:

Reddit is owned by a corporation that has to protect its investment. If you want a “free” and “open” site that will accept anything go start one yourself.

Reddit was acquired by publishing giant Conde Nast in 2006.

Here are some thing to consider regarding Reddit’s decision to 86 /r/jailbait:

Is the content on the subreddit illegal?

Distasteful for some, questionable to most – yes. But is anything that was happening on /r/jailbait (sans the transfer of nude underage images) actually illegal?

Remember, the photos the populated /r/jailbait were of clothed girls. Scantily clad at times, but always covering up the main parts that one would have to cover up to, let’s say, put it on broadcast television.

Many of the photos that populated /r/jailbait were the type of thing that you could see on Facebook at any time, such as a bunch of 16-year-old girls in bathing suits striking a pose on the beach. In fact, a good number of the photos posted to /r/jailbait were directly pulled from users screencapping Facebook photos.

Is the context the issue? Grouping the photos in a category called “jailbait” and having people comment on them – is that what makes it so distasteful to most people? By themselves, the photos did not fit a classic definition of “pornographic,” and many of them could have been seen on a teen’s own MySpace page. But by putting them in that context, does it then sexualize them to a pornographic degree?

What about other “distasteful” subreddits?

Like I said before, there are tons and tons of subreddits out there. And some would argue that many of them are equally distasteful or more distasteful than /r/jailbait.

For instance, we have /r/beatingwomen, which is pretty much what it says it is. As of right now, it’s still up and running. There’s also a /r/picsofdeadbabies, which unsurprisingly features pictures of dead babies. It’s still up and running.

Are those any less controversial than /r/jailbait? Like the alleged transfer of child pornography that happened on /r/jailbait, doesn’t the discussion and pictures in /r/beatingwomen constitute a breach of the law as well?

What about /r/randomsexiness, a subreddit that “features girls of all sorts leaving something to the imagination.” This includes females of all ages, even admittedly jailbait. Will Reddit also shut down this subreddit?

There is quite a lot of backlash on the site today regarding the decision to pull /r/jailbait, but one top voted comment explains why one user doesn’t agree with the backlash:

I really don’t understand the backlash against the admins on this one. I personally don’t want to be labelled a pedophile when I tell people I browse reddit, and no I don’t blame Anderson Cooper for that, I blame /r/jailbait. He didn’t report anything non-factual. There was a massive community of people on reddit posting pictures of underage girls for people to fap to.

In many cases these pictures were taken from private facebook profiles with no knowledge of the person in the photo. I’ve said this previously, but I’ll say it again here: If you’re offended that people are against jailbait, go start a pro-jailbait protest, because it wasn’t reddit admins or Anderson Cooper that decided it was socially unacceptable to fap to underage girls, it was society as a whole. You aren’t being oppressed. You can go start your own jailbait website if you really want to. Reddit is not the government, it’s a website held on private servers that provides a public service. Reddit has an amazing free speech policy and I think they’re upholding it to the best of their ability. Things have to be removed in extreme situations and already are (distribution of private information, illegal content, etc) The community was a threat to the site’s autonomy, financial viability, and people’s ability to use it. I think the decision was just.

It’s clear by the public backlash and many commenters on Reddit, many people think that something like /r/jailbait should not be allowed to exist. If you are on the other side and you feel that there is nothing wrong with /r/jailbait or even if you do, you think it should be allowed to exist – it’s still hard to argue that Reddit (Conde Nast) doesn’t have the right to make this decision from a business perspective.

What do you think? Even if you find it questionable, should something like /r/jailbait have the right to exist? Or do you think that it qualifies as child pornography and should be banned? What do you make of Reddit’s decision to remove the subreddit? Let us know in the comments.

October 11, 2011
No iPhone 5: The Internet Reacts To The New iPhone 4S

It’s safe to say that Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” event failed to please a large majority of Apple users, as the internet has been buzzing for the last 24 hours about the iPhone 4S announcement – mainly that it’s not the iPhone 5.

Of course, a name is only a name, but for much of the displeased masses, the fact that the new iPhone is not being called the “5” isn’t the troubling part. Some users seem to think that the iPhone 4S is not a significant update of the iPhone 4 – at least not significant enough to warrant all the hype surrounding the event.

The iPhone 4S is an improvement on the iPhone 4, however. It sports a new A5 chip that basically doubles the phone’s processing speed. Apple has put a much better camera into the 4S and it is now capable of 1080p HD recording. The iPhone 4S will run Siri, an assistant program that will supposedly transcribe text messages, schedule appointments and perform basic web browsing functions – all through the power of your voice.

But it looks exactly the same. It’s not thinner, or teardrop shaped like many expected – and the screen isn’t the 4+ inches that people had hoped.

To be fair, it is the 4S – not the 5. When the 5 rolls around (some analysts say Spring 2012, with LTE capabilities), who is to say that it won’t be the phone of the Apple-lover’s dreams?

But until then, all we are left with is the hate and the humor that comes from all of that hate and frustration on the internet. Here is a wrap-up or sorts of all the internet reaction to the iPhone 4S reveal:

First up is Hitler. Hitler always has something to say about any major event, and the iPhone 4S unveiling is no exception:

Next, Reddit has been cluttered with iPhone reactions –

Finally, here are some of the best Twitter reactions to the announcement –

@TheSixFaces
Ashwin ArumugamWould I buy the iPhone 4S? Only if Siri tells me when the iPhone 5 is coming out. 3 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@paulscheer
Paul ScheerJust wrote an “S” on my iPhone. All upgraded. 2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@mileskahn
mileskahnApple stock down on news that new iPhone didn’t live up to rumors spread by “iPhonfinatic69.” 6 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

@Justin_Stangel
Justin StangelApple announced #iPhone4s. Not much different from my current iPhone4. Nothing really that special. Can’t wait to get it 15 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@DamienFahey
Damien FaheyNow that the new iPhone comes with a built-in personal assistant, how will Naomi Campbell throw her phone at it? 21 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@DRUNKHULK
DRUNK HULKAPPLE ANNOUNCE mePHONE4S INSTEAD OF 5! HOW SAD! THEY LOST COUNT! 23 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

As a final note, whenever I see people complaining about technology, whether it be disappointment in an iPhone upgrade or the changes to the Facebook news feed or whatever, I think of this brilliant bit by Louis C.K. Enjoy –

October 5, 2011
Reddit Helped Make Imgur Into a Big Deal
By now, you’ve heard about Facebook having the largest photo library on the web, or at least, you’ve seen the graphic, but have you heard how powerful and viable Reddit has made the Imgur.com image hosting site? If not, you might be surprised by how large Imgur has grown.

While Imgur is not quite as big as Flickr, at least in regards to Alexa, its frequent use in the Reddit community has catapulted the image hosting service into the top 50 sites in the United States, but the numbers go quite a bit farther than that. In the thread that brought this information to light, a link goes to Imgur’s statistics page, and the results are pretty eye-opening.

The graphic, which leads this post, indicates that Imgur boasts the following:
- 8,701,524 images uploaded a month
- 7,831,159,587 images viewed a month
- 1196577471303.7 megabytes of bandwidth used a month
For those who don’t like to convert large numbers into smaller ones, that, as the post title informs us, is over a Petabyte of bandwidth a month, or just in case large numbers are your thing, a quadrillion bytes, or, 1000 terabytes. That’s a whopping amount of bandwidth going to entertain the Reddit masses, but it also shows just how popular images are with the Reddit crowd.

Then there’s all the Tumblr/RSS Reader sharing of the Imgur-hosted images, which helps propel the service to such a respectable heights. As indicated, the Alexa rankings for Imgur are quite strong. In fact, Imgur is actually a more popular site than Reddit, with Imgur coming in at 42. Reddit, on the other hand, comes in at 45.

For comparison’s sake, Flickr ranks 26th, which stands to reason considering just how long Flickr’s popular service been around (Flickr launched in 2004). While the amount of images Imgur hosts in comparison to Flickr may not be equal–Flickr recently announced its 6 billionth image–Imgur does experience almost 9 million uploads a month, and considering it was launched five years after Flickr, it’s easy to quantify Imgur’s exponential growth.

For further comparison’s sake, Imgur is more popular than Photobucket and Google’s Picasa, services that have been around a lot longer than Imgur. Granted, nothing comes close to Facebook’s massive array of image uploads–almost 100 billion images in Facebook’s photo database–but the fact that essentially one site, Reddit, made Imgur what it is today deserves notice.

Funny, I don’t remember Digg making a new image hosting service explode like that.
September 20, 2011
Does Social Media Still Suck At Driving Traffic?

About a month ago, a study came out discussing thle top drivers of traffic in relation to Internet traffic. While sites/companies like Google and Yahoo were about where you would expect, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook were lacking. In fact, the study, commissioned and performed by Outbrain, was responsible for a popular WebProNews article, one that, thanks to additional data from the aforementioned content company, questioned how well sites like Facebook and Twitter did in regards to driving web traffic to other sites.

The results were surprising, especially when you read about how more and more people are getting their news from social media recommendations. Nevertheless, Outbrain’s findings were clear: Social media sucks at driving web traffic.

Or does it?

Earlier, we received an email from Outbrain and their findings have been adjusted to such a degree, the “sucks” descriptor in relation to social media is not as accurate as it once was. First, Outbrain’s findings:

Top 20 Traffic Sources to Content Pages

1 Google
2 Yahoo
3 AOL/Huffington Post
4 Facebook
5 MSN*
6 Drudge Report
7 CNN
8 Outbrain
9 StumbleUpon
10 Twitter
11 FoxNews.com
12 reddit
13 MediaTakeOut
14 Fark
15 Slate
16 Comcast
17 NewsNow.co.uk
18 Wikipedia
19 Digg
20 Real Clear Politics

*Includes Bing and Live.com

In the previous report, Facebook was out of the top ten as a traffic source, and in the new findings, Facebook is now in the top five. That’s much more congruent with the realization many web users get their news, or at least recommendations for news, from Facebook.

Oddly enough, however, is Twitter’s fall. In the previous report, Twitter was ranked in the top seven, and in the new data, Twitter has fallen to the tenth spot. Considering the increase of Twitter use, that may be surprising, but previous studies have shown Twitter is good at driving traffic to blogs and other social media outlets, but not so good when it comes to driving traffic to retail sites.

Another area of surprise, or at least, perhaps mirth is Outbrain’s insistence on sticking themselves in these rankings. Again, the company responsible for the study is ranked eighth, which represents a drop of two places from the previous study. It should be noted that Outbrain makes content widgets, like the following:

And these appear on a number of large news sites, including USAToday and The Chicago Tribune. This would help explain Outbrain’s traffic-driving prowess considerably.

Then there’s the matter of Reddit.com. Considering Reddit’s explosive growth, which, oddly enough, coincides with Digg’s update failure, it’s surprising it ranks so low on Outbrain’s findings, new or previous. Reddit’s traffic driving prowess, according to Outbrain, ranked around the one percent mark. Google’s, on the other hand, ranks in the 32 percentile. Does this mean that all those Reddit members aren’t clicking links, or, much like the Twitter findings, is Reddit only good at driving traffic to certain kinds of sites?

In the case of Reddit, the enthusiastic users have helped make Imgur a viable image bank, although, it’s doubtful they would do much in the way of having an impact on the traffic going to FoxNews.com, for instance.

Do these new findings change your thoughts about using Facebook and Twitter for promotional content or do will you still shy away from them, choosing, instead, to focus on Google and Yahoo’s properties?

Let us know what you think.

September 7, 2011
Reddit Becomes Independent of Condé Nast

Condé Nast has spun out Reddit as an independent company, though its parent company still owns it all.

On the Reddit blog, Erik Martin writes, “This change is all about setting up reddit so that it can better handle future growth and opportunities. When reddit was acquired in October 2006 by Condé Nast, it was receiving about 700k page views per day. Now, reddit routinely gets that much traffic in 15 minutes. This explosion in traffic created technical, cultural, and organizational growing pains. reddit now has the kind of resources it needs to continue improving and supporting the community’s experience far into the future.”

As we reported last week, Reddit has been experiencing some tremendous growth of late. Over the past 15 months, it has tripled in size, the company said in a blog post. Since last May, we’ve grown from 7 million monthly unique visitors to 21.5 million. Our pageviews have exploded 4x to a staggering 1.6 billion pages served per month,” it said. “This growth brings new diversity, new opportunities, and new challenges to our communities. There are now over 6,500 subreddits with over 100 subscribers.”

“reddit Inc. is now owned by Advance Publications (which also owns Condé Nast), so even though the organizational shift is important, reddit is not really going anywhere. reddit Inc. will report to a Board and therefore have much more operational freedom than when we were a division of Condé Nast,” Martin explains. “Details are still being finalized.

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is talking about the news in a Google+ post. He writes:

The investment of time and love changed my life the day Condé Nast acquired us, but I never could divest myself. Traffic continued to increase, but surged after I left to volunteer for Kiva in Armenia (correlation or causation, I’ll leave to you) and the site — now one of the top 50 in the US — needs the independence its fellow online titans enjoy.

reddit has become the engine for creating innovative and influential communities online. I’ll do everything I can to help and guide the reddit, Inc. team and our CEO to grow true to the vision we’ve had since that summer of 2005. As always, there’s no reddit without community. Thank you for bringing us this far, I’ll look forward to serving you as we discover what the future holds.

The company has actually started searching for a new CEO.

September 6, 2011
Tubmlr and Reddit See Explosive Growth
There are nearly 28 million blogs on Tubmblr, and that’s up from just 7 million a year ago, according to Pingdom. The firm is sharing some new stats about the popular blogging/social media service.

Tumblr is also approaching 10 billion total posts. You can see a running count if you go to the about page. In fact, today alone, there have been over 37 million posts at the time of this writing (a little after 5pm Eastern).

Marketers, you may not want to ignore Tumblr when it comes to your social media and content efforts.

Here are some other Tumblr stats from Pingdom:
- 434 posts per second
- 26,000 posts per minute
- 1.56 million posts per hour
- 263 million posts per week
- 1.1 billion posts per month
- 13.7 billion posts per year
“At the current rate, the number of posts on Tumblr will pass 20 billion in nine months. Considering how Tumblr usage is increasing, though, we expect that to happen a lot sooner,” Pingdom says. “Such a huge influx of posts could of course put a strain on any web service, but we suspect the biggest challenge for Tumblr isn’t really getting all those new posts into their system. The greater challenge is bound to be the serving of all that content to readers and handling all the other interactions those posts create.”
Tumblr serves 12.5 billion page views per month, and the number is growing fast. Pingdom points to Quantcast data:

It’s also jumping up on Google Trends.

You may also want to start paying more attention to Reddit. A blog post from the company today says that it has tripled in size in just 15 months.

“Over the past 15 months, reddit has tripled in size. Since last May, we’ve grown from 7 million monthly unique visitors to 21.5 million. Our pageviews have exploded 4x to a staggering 1.6 billion pages served per month,” the company says. “This growth brings new diversity, new opportunities, and new challenges to our communities. There are now over 6,500 subreddits with over 100 subscribers. As we welcome new members into our communities, I’d like to take this opportunity to clarify how reddit works and what role moderators and admins play in the process.”

We’ve seen first hand that reddit can drive some serious traffic to your site if you have the right content.
September 2, 2011
McDonald’s Starts Plant A Tree Movement, Reddit Decides To Help

The power of the Internet can be summed quite nicely with the concept of crowdsourcing. Using the Internet to organize like-minded individuals for a common cause–in this case, McDonald’s and their Plant a Tree movement–has caused many different events and causes to reach a substantial level of viral popularity.

As indicated, to coincide with their tie-in with the Smurfs movie, McDonald’s has started a Plant A Tree movement, one where the company promises to plant up to 100,000 trees every time a code is entered from a pack of Apple Dippers, which are available in McDonald’s line of Happy Meals. In order to enter the code, you have to navigate to the McDonald’s Happy Meal page, one that is currently engulfed with an almost-overwhelming Smurfs theme.

The use of your computer’s mute button is a good escape if a loop of the Smurfs theme proves annoying.

Now for the crowdsourcing aspect of the story. Word of McDonald’s act of charity, one that’s albeit cloaked in a “please buy Smurfs stuff” appeal, hit the Reddit wires, and now, the Reddit community is committed to making sure McDonald’s hits the 100,000 planted trees mark. So much so, in fact, one Reddit user posted a reusable Apple Dippers code for other Reddit users to enter.

For those of you who’d like to contribute, the code is M4JE-3YKW-7L7J, and it was found courtesy of the the SlickDeals forum.

According to one of the Reddit users from an earlier comment, the McDonald’s Plant a Tree count was near the 50,000 mark. The comment was made four hours after the initial link was posted to Reddit, and now, two hours since the 50K mark post, the McDonald’s tree program stands close to 77,000 commitments.

Furthermore, I took a screenshot when I started writing this post, and the count was congruent with the 77K. I’ve since took another screenshot, which is about 30 minutes older than the first one I took. The difference in the count is almost 10,000:

These images act as a perfect example about the power of crowdsourcing. Between the SlickDeals forum, Reddit’s voracious users–so much for them not driving traffic, right, Outbrain?–and other word of mouth resources, it’s almost a given McDonald’s will meet it’s 100,000 tree-planting commitment. The question is, will the Reddit users of the world stick around to see if the fast food king keeps it word?

Crowdsourcing is great for drawing attention to various movements, but the follow-through is just as important, or else these efforts are for naught. With that in mind, I would still encourage you to use the code provided and make sure McDonald’s reaches it’s 100,000 limit.

August 17, 2011
Netflix Price Increase Infuriates The Interwebs

I’m sure that when the people over at Netflix submitted their blog post about the new prices yesterday, they expected some level of backlash. How could they not? In short, they turned a service that cost $10 into a service that costs $16 without adding anything new.

People love to get something for nothing, but when you announce nothing for something, well, you’re inviting trouble.

If you somehow missed the news yesterday, here’s a quick rundown – Effective September 1st for current members and immediately for new members, the DVD plans will be separate plans – apart from the streaming plan. Unlimited streaming will still cost $7.99 a month but now, instead of a $2 add-on, the 1-DVD-at-a-time feature will be its own plan also costing $7.99.

This amounts to a 60% price increase for people who still wish to keep streaming and DVD services.

Today, in the aftermath of that announcement, the internet has exploded with frustration, betrayal, and rage. A current top trend on Twitter is “Dear Netflix,” and as you would expect the 140-character letters are not too kind. Check out some of the top “Dear Netflix” tweets –

@CarmenRodgers
Carmen RodgersDear #Netflix, your 60% increase is the perfect opportunity for someone else to come in on a market you had comfortably cornered. Good luck. 16 minutes ago via TMF – Social Media Updater · powered by @socialditto

@Jecon
Jess ConnerDear @Netflix, it got rocky when you lost my #Dexter. Yet we reunited over seasons of #MadMen. But now you want too much from me.It’s over. 2 hours ago via Echofon · powered by @socialditto

@droberts0503
Duncan RobertsDear Netflix, I got your breakup email. Sorry to hear you don’t want me to be with you anymore. 3 hours ago via Twitter for Android · powered by @socialditto

@adkalmanack
Adirondack AlmanackDear #netflix, You can’t double the price of a product without providing more value. Bad business move – #redbox here we come. 1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@BrandNewInBox
BNIBDear Netflix, Fuck You I Quit. 18 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

“Front page of the internet” Reddit has also been inundated with posts about the Netflix price increase.

Yesterday, we asked what’s next for Netflix users? Will users just pony up the extra cash? Will they drop one of the services, either streaming or DVD? Will they now feel justified in pirating the movies they want to watch?

One prevailing thought it that cheap DVD rental services like Redbox and the Blockbuster kiosks will truly be the ones to benefit from Netflix’s price shift.

Many are saying that they will keep their $7.99 streaming plan and simply head to Redbox for a $1 new release when they can’t find what they want to watch on Netflix instant. Maybe that’s what Netflix is counting on, as I speculate that this new price shift is the first move in Netflix phasing out physical DVDs altogether.

It’s easy to get caught up in the rage of a 60% price hike, but for a little perspective on this whole thing, we turn back to Reddit–

July 13, 2011
Reddit Users Help Save Man’s Wedding

Who said the interwebs were only for trolling, stalking and porn?

The Reddit community has rallied around one of their own and helped him make this best of a bad situation. About a month ago a Reddit user, BigPapiC-Dog, posted a plea for help on AskReddit. His wedding was fast approaching and he had just received the devastating news that he had lost his venue. I can’t even imagine the freakout that occurred when he told his fiance the news – *shudder*.

BigPapiC-Dog demonstrated to the Reddit community that all the cards were stacked against him. At three weeks away, finding a new venue was going to be tough. June is a popular month for weddings, so that was going to make it near impossible to find a new one on short notice. He couldn’t just move the thing to a later date because friends and family had already gotten plane tickets and both bride and groom had gotten off work for their honeymoon.

Plus they needed a private residence in order to make use of the $1,500 worth of booze they had already purchased for the reception.

So BigPapiC first asked if he could have his wedding at someone’s house. “We will clean up after ourselves,” he said.

Over 1000 comments poured in, some offering up their places for the unlucky couple and many giving suggestions on how to “make their own venue” per say – and how to make it work. Users suggested ideas for the wedding, reception and everything in between. It would up that the best idea involved having the entire thing in a huge field. They apparently decided on his wife’s uncle’s farm. Suggestions for that included everything from bounce tents to a bamboo mat dance floor.

Before the wedding, he updated the post with this thank you to the Redditors –

Over 800 redditors have commented and made terrific suggestions or just wished me well. This is why I come here. Just as I start to lose faith in humanity (I am not saying that this one event shook my faith in other people, it’s a generalization), you people all remind me of how good other human beings can be to each other without any sort of motive or incentive (except comment karma?). Thanks so much to everyone for your suggestions and kind words. I again promise to post pictures of the special day, and update with something more than “it went okay”

And just a few hours ago, BigPapiC posted an update about his wedding to the Redditors.

Fucking AWESOME. I can’t even say “it went okay” as a joke. It was epic. We took the “have it in a field” idea, and really ran with it. After three solid weeks of work cleaning and prepping, my wife’s uncle’s farm was ready for action. It is a big property, and he has horses, cows, pigs and goats. We cleared out a cow pasture for parking and set up a tent by the stables. The stables were filled with his best horses (Pasofinos for those who care) and one of the stalls had some week-and-a-half old puppies that were just born. We moved the wedding from 6 to 7, and the weather was perfect. Not a cloud in the sky, and the breeze started up about 30 minutes before the ceremony.

And he made good on his word, posting pictures of what looks like it was a pretty fun event.

Oh, internets – just when I think you have no good left in you, you go and do something like this – and totally redeem yourself. Random people pretty much became this guy’s wedding planners. And it looks like the moral of this story is that it’s not about the venue…it’s about the people. It’s about love, and (puke)….

[Hat tip to Boing Boing]

June 16, 2011
Big Reddit Changes Coming?

As you may or may not know, I typically watch the domain name purchases of many of the web’s biggest brands online. And I do it on a regular basis. Some of these purchases are interesting to see, and some notsomuch.

When a large group of domain names is purchases by an organization that is popular on the web, it usually indicates something big is coming. Today, Conde Nast Digital, the guys behind Reddit.com, purchased a whopping 285 domain names related to Reddit, I began to wonder if something big is in the works for Reddit.

If you did not have specific plans for 285 domain names (which would cost over $2200 to register for one year), you normally would not purchase them. After all, these particular domain names include the Reddit brand (trademark), so if they were simply being purchased to protect the trademark, then that would not be necessary. If someone else had purchased something with “Reddit” in the domain name, then it could be recovered–either with a legal strong arm or the typical UDRP process.

So, at this point I can only speculate. Why would Conde Nast Digital purchase domain names like ShopReddit.com, SkyReddit.com, and VideoReddit.com if they did not have plans for these domains? Apparently “something big” is coming soon, related to Reddit.

Conde Nast Digital purchased 287 domains all at once, on the same day. Only two of them did NOT include the word “Reddit” in them. By the way, here is the list:

activereddit.com
alienreddit.com
alphareddit.com
artreddit.com
astroreddit.com
autoreddit.com
baseballreddit.com
bigreddit.com
bizreddit.com
blogreddit.com
bluereddit.com
bonusreddit.com
bookreddit.com
boxreddit.com
businessreddit.com
carreddit.com
cashreddit.com
casinoreddit.com
cityreddit.com
clickreddit.com
comicsreddit.com
computerreddit.com
coolreddit.com
creativereddit.com
creditreddit.com
cyberreddit.com
dadreddit.com
datareddit.com
dayreddit.com
dealreddit.com
designreddit.com
digestreddit.com
digireddit.com
digitalreddit.com
domainreddit.com
dotreddit.com
doublereddit.com
easyreddit.com
expertreddit.com
ezreddit.com
fastreddit.com
findreddit.com
firstreddit.com
fitreddit.com
flyreddit.com
foodreddit.com
footballreddit.com
freereddit.com
freshreddit.com
friendsofreddit.com
funnyreddit.com
funreddit.com
futurereddit.com
gamereddit.com
gamesreddit.com
getreddit.com
globalreddit.com
goreddit.com
greatreddit.com
groupreddit.com
healthreddit.com
highreddit.com
hockeyreddit.com
homereddit.com
hostingreddit.com
hostreddit.com
hotreddit.com
housereddit.com
iamareddit.com
ideareddit.com
imagereddit.com
improvereddit.com
inforeddit.com
inreddit.com
instantreddit.com
iwantreddit.com
jobreddit.com
karmareddit.com
lifereddit.com
linkreddit.com
listreddit.com
livereddit.com
loanreddit.com
localreddit.com
loungereddit.com
lovereddit.com
mailreddit.com
marketingreddit.com
marketreddit.com
masterreddit.com
maxireddit.com
mediareddit.com
meetupreddit.com
microreddit.com
mindreddit.com
mmareddit.com
mommyreddit.com
momreddit.com
moneyreddit.com
morereddit.com
moviesreddit.com
multireddit.com
musicreddit.com
neoreddit.com
netreddit.com
networkreddit.com
newonreddit.com
newreddit.com
newsreddit.com
okreddit.com
onereddit.com
onlinereddit.com
parentingreddit.com
parentsreddit.com
partyreddit.com
photoreddit.com
pixelreddit.com
playreddit.com
pointreddit.com
pokerreddit.com
politicsreddit.com
popreddit.com
propertyreddit.com
proreddit.com
quickreddit.com
radarreddit.com
realestatereddit.com
realreddit.com
redditadviceanimals.com
redditart.com
redditatheists.com
redditauto.com
redditbaseball.com
redditbest.com
redditbiz.com
redditblue.com
redditbook.com
redditbox.com
redditbusiness.com
redditbuy.com
redditcar.com
redditcash.com
redditcasino.com
redditcity.com
redditclick.com
redditcode.com
redditcomics.com
redditcomputer.com
redditcool.com
redditcreative.com
redditcredit.com
redditdads.com
redditdata.com
redditdeal.com
redditdesign.com
redditdigest.com
redditdigital.com
redditdomain.com
redditdot.com
redditeasy.com
redditfind.com
redditflights.com
redditfly.com
redditfood.com
redditfootball.com
redditforlife.com
redditfree.com
redditfriends.com
redditftw.com
redditgame.com
redditget.com
redditgoldmember.com
redditgreen.com
reddithealth.com
reddithockey.com
reddithome.com
reddithost.com
reddithosting.com
reddithot.com
reddithouse.com
redditidea.com
redditimage.com
redditinfo.com
redditjob.com
redditkarma.com
redditlife.com
redditlink.com
redditlive.com
redditloan.com
redditlocal.com
redditlounge.com
redditmail.com
redditmarket.com
redditmind.com
redditmma.com
redditmoms.com
redditmoney.com
redditmovies.com
redditmusic.com
redditnation.com
redditnet.com
redditnetwork.com
redditnew.com
redditnews.com
redditone.com
redditparenting.com
redditparents.com
redditparty.com
redditphoto.com
redditpixel.com
redditpoint.com
redditpoker.com
redditpolitics.com
redditpro.com
redditproperty.com
redditradar.com
redditravel.com
redditrealestate.com
redditred.com
redditrevolution.com
redditscience.com
redditscifi.com
redditsex.com
redditsite.com
redditsky.com
redditsoccer.com
redditsoft.com
redditsolutions.com
redditsource.com
redditspace.com
redditstar.com
reddittech.com
redditthe.com
reddittop.com
reddittrade.com
reddittravel.com
redditvision.com
redditweb.com
redditwin.com
redditworld.com
redditwtf.com
reddityou.com
redreddit.com
relevantreddit.com
relevantreddits.com
savereddit.com
sciencereddit.com
scifireddit.com
seekreddit.com
sexreddit.com
shopreddit.com
simplereddit.com
skyreddit.com
smartreddit.com
soccerreddit.com
softreddit.com
solutionsreddit.com
sourcereddit.com
spacereddit.com
sportsreddit.com
spyreddit.com
starreddit.com
startreddit.com
storereddit.com
sunreddit.com
superreddit.com
techreddit.com
thereddit.com
topreddit.com
tradereddit.com
travelreddit.com
trendingonreddit.com
trendreddit.com
tvreddit.com
usareddit.com
videoreddit.com
vipreddit.com
visionreddit.com
webreddit.com
winreddit.com
wonderreddit.com
worldreddit.com
wtfreddit.com
yourreddit.com
zenreddit.com

Originally published on BillHartzer.com

June 1, 2011
Anonymous Targets The Protect IP Bill

Google is not the only well-known public entity that’s decrying the unfortunate Protect IP bill, a would-be tool of an entertainment industry desperately trying to maintain control over the concept of intellectual property, a muddled subject on the best of days. Keep in mind, the RIAA likes to keep the money they’ve won in previous IP lawsuits, confusing the subject of who they are actually protecting, themselves or the artists?

As expected, once text of the Protect IP bill hit, the backlash was quick and severe. So much so, it’s hard to believe those that make the laws are even considering the whims of the people they’re supposed to be representing; instead, favoring an entertainment industry that’s shown zero reason to evolve with the times, an industry that cares more about protecting its coffers than it does producing quality entertainment.

Just ask Roger Ebert and/or the Black Eyed Peas.

As for the much-maligned IP protection bill, you can find various criticisms all over the Internet, but for these purposes, Tech Dirt and CNet are good starting places. This post isn’t here to discuss the effectiveness or the lack thereof concerning Protect IP. Instead, the backlash has brought us to perhaps the second chapter of this story: Anonymous’ reaction.

Naturally, the folks in the Guy Fawkes masks aren’t too happy about the implications of the Protect IP bill, and so they’ve decided to fight back like they normally do: by conducting a denial of service attack against the site of the institution Anonymous feels wronged by. In this case, they will be targeting the United States Chamber of Commerce, which sounds like the kind of target Anonymous prefers. However, instead of relying on word of mouth, normally carried by various IRC channels, Anonymous reached out to one of the more outspoken sections of the Internet: Reddit.com.

The current lead “story” at Reddit concerns a call to arms from the Anonymous army, asking for help in the upcoming attack, called “Operation Payback,”, which takes place on May 23rd, according to the flier. And yes, there is a themed-for-Reddit-flier for the event, which we have:

Click for larger image
So far, there’s nothing on either of Anonymous’ Twitter accounts mentioning the invitation; however, the Reddit reaction thread is full of responses, with one in particular standing out. In it, user norten asks questions the effectiveness of such Anonymous attacks:

And DDoS isn’t? It’s exactly shit like this that scares the average voter into thinking the government needs more control to protect them from ‘hackers’. It won’t convince anyone that the internet needs less oversight, and it may sway some the exact opposite way.

Does Anonymous’ actions only exacerbate the “war” against the Internet or does it help? Whatever the case, it’s hard to deny the logic and common sense being displayed in norten’s response. And then, there’s this perspective from Nick4753:

Plus, who the fuck cares if the US Chamber of Commerce website is unavailable for 24-48 hours? How many people actually go to that website on a daily basis? The DDOS attacks that are most effective are usually those that cause substantial economic harm because they are aimed at an organization that relies on their website having 24/7/365 uptime. I just don’t see that applying here.

Is Anonymous targeting the wrong entity? Perhaps their efforts would be better spent engaging Senator Patrick Leahy, one of the chief architects for Protect IP. Just how effective do you think Anonymous’ techniques are? Let us know in the comments.

May 23, 2011
Digg Users Sure Dig Digg Competitor Reddit

Update: Digg Founder Kevin Rose has made the following statements on Twitter:

We’re working hard to fix the source diversity part of the digg algorithm, more news soon…

We want to ensure diversity of sources, and we’re working on that now…

Original Article: Digg recently launched its long-awaited redesign, making the site much more appealing to publishers, as it is now easier to push content out to Digg users. Some Digg users apparently aren’t as thrilled about it.

There does seem to be some issues with the new Digg, as currently Reddit, a Digg competitor, is taking up the majority of Digg’s Top News (Hat Tip: Robin Wauters). It appears to be a backlash from Digg powers users against the new incarnation of Digg which lessens their influence.

Reddit has its Digg account set up to auto-publish any Reddit stories from its RSS feeds (a luxury afforded to any publisher). Publishers who are getting their content shared on Reddit are benefiting doubly.

The other day, Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger Network publicly offered to buy Reddit from Condé Nast, saying, "I believe that Reddit is one of the best communities I have seen on the Internet." There seem to be enough people that agree with Huh to keep Reddit link flowing on Digg’s Top News homepage.

Clearly, Digg is going to have to do something about the situation. It’s very doubtful that they’re going to let Reddit dominate the entire Top News section for long, particularly as the site is trying to reinvent itself, and spark a renewed interest.

Currently, there is no mention of Reddit on Digg’s Known Issues page.

August 30, 2010
Cheezburger Network Offers to Buy Reddit

Ben Huh, who runs the Cheezburger Network, has offered to buy Reddit. This comes after Condé Nast, which owns Reddit, rejected Prop 19 ads on the site (Facebook also rejected them).

Yesterday, Reddit posted the following message:

The reddit admins were just blindsided with the news that, apparently, we’re not allowed to take advertising money from sites that support California’s Prop 19 (like this one, for example).

Reddit says the decision was made at the highest levels of Condé Nast, and that "Reddit itself strongly disagrees with it, and frankly thinks it’s ridiculous that we’re turning away advertising money."

Enter Huh’s offer. On the site The Daily What, which is part of the Cheezburger Network, there is an email Huh wrote to Condé Nast, which says:

I have made this offer privately to a few people associated with Reddit, and I’ll say it publicly now:

I believe that Reddit is one of the best communities I have seen on the Internet. I also believe that Reddit would benefit from more resources and less corporate interference. We can offer all of the above. And we’d love to buy Reddit and all those pesky troublesome users that we love so much.

Condé, we’ll be waiting for a call.

Huh is a big fan of community. Here’s an interview WebProNews did with him not too long ago:

More WebProNews Videos

Reddit says its trying to convince "Corporate" that they’re making the wrong decision. Maybe Huh can convince them to make another decision entirely. Reddit doesn’t appear to be too happy under Condé. They recently began asking for user donations for support, because they were not getting enough resources from the company.

By the way, Reddit decided to run Prop 19 ads anyway.

August 28, 2010
Reddit Taking Donations for Reddit Gold (and Gettting Them)

Update: Reddit is already calling the effort a triumph and says, "We’re getting a much-needed cash infusion."

Original Article: Reddit has announced Reddit Gold – a paid version of its service. It costs what you are willing to pay for it. As Reddit describes, "It’s a way of supporting reddit, boosting our bottom line and helping us afford faster computers and more employees (or was it the other way around?)."

In other words, Reddit needs help, and is asking for donations.

While the idea of paying for an upgraded version of Reddit may not sit well with all Reddit users, one would expect the company’s approach of set-your-own-price to be more appealing than Reddit simply setting one itself. Gawker uses words like "begging" and "sad" in describing Reddit’s announcement, but at least it’s honest.

Reddit is owned by publishing empire Condé Nast, which owns such publications as GQ, Wired, Glamour, Vogue, and Ars Technica (to name a few), but that doesn’t mean said empire is willing to fork out too much cash to support the Reddit team’s needs.

Reddit’s Mike Schiraldi writes, "Whenever this topic comes up on the site, someone always posts a comment about how reddit is owned by Conde Nast, a billion-dollar corporation like Time Warner or Cobra, and how if they wanted to they could hire a thousand engineers and purchase a million dollars worth of heavy iron. But here’s the thing: corporations aren’t run like charities. They keep separate budgets for each business line, and usually allocate resources proportionate to revenue. And reddit’s revenue isn’t great."

Again, at least it’s honest.

In May, Reddit got nearly a million unique visitors, according to Compete data.

July 13, 2010