WebProNews

Tag: Reddit

  • Reddit Launches Reddit Live Feature

    Reddit Launches Reddit Live Feature

    Reddit announced a new type of post called Liveupdate about five months ago. It made the feature available to admins, who could add reporters to them.

    Now, reddit announced that it’s making the feature available to everyone under the name “reddit live”. The company explains in a blog post:

    reddit live is a new feature of reddit for real-time updates. A reddit live thread’s multiple contributors can post updates, and anyone watching gets sent those updates immediately without having to refresh. Unlike with self-post or comment based live threads, there’s no limit to how many updates can be posted during the course of an event. These live threads exist outside of subreddits and are designed to be submitted, like any other link, to whichever (multiple) subreddits are relevant to the thread. Pictures, video, and more can be embedded in the updates by simply pasting a link.

    This feature has been in semi-open beta for a few months now. We posted about the beta testing of the feature back in February after a couple of threads got popular: A live thread about the conflict in Ukraine that has been updated continuously for nearly five months now, and the breakout hit Twitch Plays Pokemon, which followed an incredible event. Most recently, we ran a live thread of the NBA Summer League.

    Anyone can set up their own live thread from reddit.com/live. There’s also a subreddit at /r/live, where you can submit threads.

    It’s pretty easy to set up a thread, and you can change the title/description after it’s been set up. You can also delete your updates, and close the thread at any time.

    Image via reddit

  • Imgur Uses Tagging To Improve Search Experience

    Imgur Uses Tagging To Improve Search Experience

    Imgur just announced some new search and discovery features, which pull what it says is the best and most relevant content out for each user on a personalized basis.

    Over 1.5 million images are uploaded to Imgur every day, so you can see why discovery tools would be helpful.

    CEO Alan Schaaf says, “We’ve grown so quickly, and it’s critical that we continue to deliver an experience to our users that makes the time they spend on our site as personal to them, and as enjoyable as possible.”

    Essentially, images are now tagged by users, and these tags are used across the site. Users can use the tags to curate custom experiences. Users can also suggest and vote on image tags, which Imgur says will power new and “significantly enhanced” search capabilities.

    The company says sorting by category will help it identify trends as they’re happening, including when images go viral.

    “With 130 million users and 1.5 million images uploaded every day, there’s an incredible depth of amazing content to dive into,” says Schaaf. “This new set of features significantly empowers our community to explore and enjoy the full scope of the web’s most viral content.”

    The features also create new revenue opportunities for Imgur, specifically on the business development, partnership, and advertising fronts.

    And maybe it will help reddit users too.

    A few months ago, Imgur raised a $40 million round of funding. Read our conversation with Schaaf about the company’s plans here.

    Imgur has a blog post up on the new features here.

    Images via Imgur

  • Macaulay Culkin Won The Internet With His Latest Shirt

    Macaulay Culkin Won The Internet With His Latest Shirt

    Macaulay Culkin should grace more t-shirts. It would appear that Ryan Gosling agrees as he sported a t-shirt featuring the child star and current member of alt-folk band Pizza Underground. Now Culkin has fired back with his own genius take on Gosling’s shirt.

    Earlier this week, the Pizza Underground Twitter account shared a picture of Culkin wearing a shirt depicting Gosling wearing a shirt depicting Culkin. It was possibly the most meta moment of the week and it did not go unnoticed on the Internet. The band was even in on the joke by prefacing the picture with “Let’s get Meta” followed by all the prerequisite hashtags.

    Following the picture, the Internet fell in love. The original post on Reddit garnered over 3,500 upvotes and almost 2,000 comments. The Photoshop warriors also rose to the occasion and tried to make it as meta as possible.

    Here’s the original post on Twitter:

    Now here’s what Reddit user RoyalPrinceSoldier did with it:

    Macaulay Culkin Won The Internet With His Latest Shirt

    In response, Reddit user Retarded_Artist made it even more meta:

    Macaulay Culkin Won The Internet With His Latest Shirt

    Of course, the picture also appeared at Reddit’s Photoshop Battle sub-reddit and h8trswana8’s entry was declared the winner:

    Macaulay Culkin Won The Internet With His Latest Shirt

    I think it’s safe to say the Internet still loves Macaulay Culkin even if Kevin McCallister doesn’t.

    Image via Pizza Underground/Twitter

  • ‘Front Page Of The Internet’ Draws From Twice As Many Topics

    ‘Front Page Of The Internet’ Draws From Twice As Many Topics

    Reddit, the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet,” announced today that it is doubling the number of default subreddits (sections) to have stories featured on its own front page. These are what appear for logged out users, and as the default categories for new users.

    They’re bumping it up from twenty-five to fifty.

    Of course logged in users will get a more personalized experience with stories drawing from the subreddits they subscribe to.

    The new defaults are as follows:

    /r/announcements
    /r/Art
    /r/AskReddit
    /r/askscience
    /r/aww
    /r/blog
    /r/books
    /r/creepy
    /r/dataisbeautiful
    /r/DIY
    /r/Documentaries
    /r/EarthPorn
    /r/explainlikeimfive
    /r/Fitness
    /r/food
    /r/funny
    /r/Futurology
    /r/gadgets
    /r/gaming
    /r/GetMotivated
    /r/gifs
    /r/history
    /r/IAmA
    /r/InternetIsBeautiful
    /r/Jokes
    /r/LifeProTips
    /r/listentothis
    /r/mildlyinteresting
    /r/movies
    /r/Music
    /r/news
    /r/nosleep
    /r/nottheonion
    /r/oldschoolcool
    /r/personalfinance
    /r/philosophy
    /r/photoshopbattles
    /r/pics
    /r/science
    /r/Showerthoughts
    /r/space
    /r/sports
    /r/television
    /r/tifu
    /r/todayilearned
    /r/TwoXChromosomes
    /r/UpliftingNews
    /r/videos
    /r/worldnews
    /r/writingprompts

    It’s a pretty healthy balance of topics, wouldn’t you say?

    There are some noticeable omissions from the list. The company made some changes to the defaults last summer, and got rid of /atheism and r/politics. Neither are part of the new set of fifty, despite being part of a previous set of twenty-five. When they removed those, this is what reddit said about it:

    “We could give you a canned corporate answer or a diplomatic answer that is carefully crafted for the situation. But since this is reddit, we’re going to try things a bit differently and give you the real answer: they just weren’t up to snuff. Now, don’t get us wrong, there still ARE good parts about them. Overall, they just haven’t continued to grow and evolve like the other subreddits we’ve decided to add.”

    Apparently they still aren’t up to snuff for even the top fifty at this point.

    If you don’t like the list of defaults as it stands now, don’t worry. Reddit says it intends to change them more often. On the other hand, that’s why they let you have an account. Make it your own.

    The company seems to be looking to better monetize its front page. Last month, they announced some new ad targeting capabilities for it as well. Why not expand the number of topics to interest more people as well?

    Image via reddit

  • Reddit Frontpage Ads Get Location Targeting

    Reddit Frontpage Ads Get Location Targeting

    Reddit announced on Wednesday that it has released location targeting on its frontpage, to make ads more personally relevant to users (which is obviously more helpful to advertisers as well).

    As the company says, this will be especially helpful for things like movie premieres, which often have different release dates in different countries, as well as products that can only ship to certain places, or events for specific cities. These are just examples.

    The company has offered country and city targeting on image ads for a while.

    Reddit’s Jena Donlin writes on the company blog, “Ad dollars on reddit are money well spent. Not only are you supporting your goals and reddit, you’re also giving back to the reddit community. 10% of all ad revenue (not profit, revenue) in 2014 will be given to non-profits chosen by redditors.”

    Reddit is giving away free ads to crowdfunded projects, small local businesses, nonprofits, and those looking to hire redditors. It’s also offering 200 small ad campaigns to international businesses who set up some of the first campaigns targeting based on country viewing from.

    “We have a longstanding tradition to give out free promoted posts on reddit to different categories of advertisers as the whim takes us,” says Donlin.

    Those who wish to get in on the free international campaigns are told to use their reddit accounts, and go to reddit.com/advertising, then click “Create an Ad.” Then follow the steps listed here.

    Image via reddit

  • Reddit Helps Find Missing Mom with Alzheimer’s in NYC

    Reddit Helps Find Missing Mom with Alzheimer’s in NYC

    I’ll be the first to admit, when someone says “reddit is on the case!” I tend to cringe a bit. We all remember that unfortunate situation shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings were the reddit sleuths took it upon themselves to figure the whole thing out. We know how that ended.

    But sometimes the crowdsourcing works.

    Yesterday, a New York City man made a plea in the r/nyc subreddit: My Mom has Alzheimer’s, she’s missing in the Upper West side of Manhattan, and I need your help.

    “My mother went missing yesterday (4/21/14) after wandering out of my parent’s apartment on W 69 St between Central Park West and Columbus. She was alone in the apartment at the time, and we believe she left in the early afternoon,” said user Josh Goldberg.

    “Her name is May Goldberg. She is 59 years old, Chinese, 5’6″ 115 lbs. She has shoulder-length black hair and we believe she might be wearing a white, long-sleeve, zip-up fleece (NY1 article lists alternative clothing that she MIGHT be wearing). She speaks both Mandarin Chinese and English. She walks with a slight limp due to hip-replacement surgery she had several years ago. She has severe dementia.”

    Along with notifying the police, Goldberg provided the reddit community images of his mother and a link to an article about her

    In about seven hours, his mother had been found.

    “Hi guys. I am so glad May will be shortly reunited with her family. I was walking home from work around 9:30-10PM and I noticed May at East 47th and Lexington Avenue. As I saw Josh’s post in the afternoon she looked very familiar. I quickly pulled out my phone and visited this page to ensure it is indeed her. When I realized it’s her, I approached her, asked for her name, told her that her family is looking for her, and took her to Hyatt Hotel lobby to contact the police. The gentleman and lady at the Hyatt front desk were extremely helpful and they contacted the police. Two police officers arrived within 3 minutes. They identified May and I believe they called for an ambulance. In the meantime, I quickly sent a personal message to Josh via Reddit informing him that her mom has been found and that she is with the police,” said user geryorama.

    Reddit has dubbed him the ‘Where’s Waldo’ champion of the world, having found Goldberg in a city of eight million people.

    Josh Goldberg took to his post to update r/nyc that his mother had been found, and to thank the community for their help.

    “MY MOM HAS BEEN FOUND! She is safe, but she is being checked out at the hospital as a precaution. A million thanks to /u/geryorama for finding her on the street and alerting the authorities. The outpouring of support has been completely overwhelming. My family and I send a HUGE thank you to the entire Reddit community. You are amazing. Thank you,” he said.

    Gotta love a happy ending.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Harrison Ford Answers Questions on Star Wars, Indiana Jones in Reddit AMA

    Harrison Ford Answers Questions on Star Wars, Indiana Jones in Reddit AMA

    Actor Harrison Ford made a “Ask Me Anything” thread on Reddit yesterday, answering (and not answering) some of his fans’ most pervasive questions. Although the session only lasted one hour, Ford conveyed stories from the highlights of his career: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Blade Runner..

    In regard to Star Wars, Ford explained that when he was offered the part “I realized this was another way of putting food on the table.” Since his job at the time had be carpentry and not acting, he was surprised about the offer and took it right away. He also explained that “of course” he would win in a fight with Star Wars co-start Mark Hamill. And when asked the famous ‘who shot first’ question (Gredo or Solo), Ford quickly deflected: “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

    His role in the Indiana Jones franchise covered more ground in the AMA compared to Star Wars. Ford said the character was more fun to do “because of the places we went to and the adventures and the action. But Han Solo was also a huge part of my life.” His longest reply was in response to a question asking for a good story about making the Indiana Jones movies:

    Oh, let’s see. On the first Indiana Jones movie, I tore an ACL in one of my knees, can’t remember which knee, the scene in which I was fighting the big German mechanic on an airplane called a flying wing, I was run over by the landing gear and injured my knee, but I can’t remember which one it was. Lots of bumps and injuries along the way.
    Funny stories? We were shooting in Tunisia, and the script had a scene in which I fight a swordsman, an expert swordsman, it was meant to be the ultimate duel between sword and whip. And I was suffering from dysentery, really, found it inconvenient to be out of my trailer for more than 10 minutes at a time. We’d done a brief rehearsal of the scene the night before we were meant to shoot it, and both Steve and I realized it would take 2 or 3 days to shoot this. And it was the last thing we were meant to shoot in Tunisia before we left to shoot in England. And the scene before this in the film included a whip fight against 5 bad guys that were trying to kidnap Marian, so I thought it was a bit redundant. I was puzzling how to get out of this 3 days of shooting, so when I got to set I proposed to Steven that we just shoot the son a bitch and Steve said “I was thinking that as well.” So he drew his sword, the poor guy was a wonderful British stuntman who had practiced his sword skills for months in order to do this job, and was quite surprised by the idea that we would dispatch him in 5 minutes. But he flourished his sword, I pulled out my gun and shot him, and then we went back to England.

    Unlike the character he played, Harrison Ford said that he actually likes snakes.

    On Blade Runner Ford said he would love to work with Ridley Scott and revisit his character again if a sequel was made. When asked about whether he thought his character was a replicant or not he said “I think that it’s a wonderful storytelling mechanism for that question to be left unanswered,” adding “I love that people are still curious about it.”

    Although he mentioned it in the AMA introduction, Ford only really got to answer one question regarding his latest project “Years of Living Dangerously”, which was a short plea on the importance of climate change. The miniseries focuses on character driven stories about people directly impacted on climate change. Show creator David Gelber told the LA Times “We didn’t want to do another competent documentary that would essentially preach to the choir and would be seen by a relatively small audience who already agreed this is a big deal.” James Cameron, who also works on the project, lent Ford his Twitter account to give proof for the AMA:

    Image via Years of Living Dangerously, YouTube

  • Imgur CEO Talks Plans For New Funding, Relationship With Reddit [Exclusive]

    Imgur CEO Talks Plans For New Funding, Relationship With Reddit [Exclusive]

    Imgur announced this morning that it has raised $40 million in a series A round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. General partner, Lars Dalgaard will take a Board of Directors seat with the company.

    Reddit, which gives Imgur more exposure than anywhere else on the web, also contributed to the round. The company calls this “an appropriate nod to founder Alan Schaaf originally building Imgur as a ‘simple image sharer’ for the Reddit community.”

    “Imgur was originally launched on reddit, and we are honored that the reddit community have chosen Imgur to be their de facto image sharer,” Schaaf, who is also the company’s CEO, tells WebProNews. “Until now there was no formal business relationship but now there is, and we are really excited to work closer with reddit to bring some new exciting mutually beneficial features to members of both communities.”

    Read our discussion with Schaaf last year about Imgur’s relationship with reddit here.

    The company says it will use the funding to accelerate its internal growth, drive continued product development and innovation, and to grow its community worldwide.

    “We will be growing our teams and hiring for some key roles in engineering, sales, marketing, HR, and finance,” Schaaf tells us. “We want to make sure that we hire engineers as fast as possible to continue to build and improve our product and grow our community, first and foremost. The business will continue to follow that growth.”

    When asked about new product features we can expect down the road, Schaaf tell us they can’t discuss too much about plans for upcoming features, but they are “hoping to release a new feature that improves content discoverability in the next month or so.”

    He would not disclose how much reddit is contributing to the funding.

    “As a company that bootstrapped our way to profitability and had a blast doing it, we really weren’t out looking for money at all,” he said in the announcement. “That said, as soon as we started talking with Marc and Lars, we knew this was a great fit. Lars completely gets what we’re trying to accomplish, and has pledged to help us conquer the Internet. The only sad part is that we won’t be eligible for any more Best Bootstrapped Startup Crunchies.”

    “We’ve been watching Imgur for years, and the way Alan and his team have committed to building for the community is truly impressive,” said Dalgaard. “It’s rare to see a company so committed to preserving an excellent user experience, and it’s no accident that this community has flourished. We hope to provide resources and guidance to help Imgur continue down this path, with the freedom to do even more to accelerate product innovation and community growth.”

    Last year, Imgur finally launched its mobile apps and a meme generator tool. In September, the company announced that it had reached 100,000,000 unique monthly visitors. The apps had seen hundreds of thousands of downloads in the first months of availability.

    Earlier this year, it launched a mobile app for the meme generator, as well as an analytics feature to let users track the viral success of their images.

    Image via Imgur

  • Wil Wheaton Has Advice for Kids Being Bullied

    Wil Wheaton Has Advice for Kids Being Bullied

    Were you ever picked on for being a nerd or have a child who is being picked at school for being nerdy? If so, Wil Wheaton has some advice, and who better to listen to than Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation (or plain old Wil Wheaton from The Big Bang Theory, for the younger folks), after all?

    Nearly a year after Wheaton answered a question about how to deal with being called a “nerd” at Denver Comicon, his response has gone viral after the video was posted on Reddit.

    “When you were a kid, were you called a nerd and how did you deal with it?” the young girl, who has been identified as Mia, asked Wheaton. Check out an excerpt from Wheaton’s response below.

    When I was a little boy I was called a nerd all the time because I did not like sports, I loved to read, I liked math and science and I thought school was really cool and it hurt, a lot.

    When a person makes fun of you, when a person is cruel to you, it has nothing to do with you. It’s not about what you said. It’s not about what you did. It’s not about what you love. It’s about them feeling bad about themselves. They feel sad.

    So, when a person is cruel to you like that, I know that this is hard, but honestly the kind and best reaction is to pity them. And don’t let them make you feel bad because you love a thing.

    And I will tell you this —it absolutely gets better as you get older.

    Watch Wheaton’s entire heartfelt response to Mia’s question in the video below.

    As Wheaton said, things do get better, and Mia’s mom actually chimed in on the Reddit thread and told users that her daughter has had a much better school year so far. “This year has been a good year, but she noticed another little girl in her class kept getting picked on by the other students. She became this girl’s friend and stands up for her when the other kids are being mean,” the mom said.

    The news that Mia has had a better school year and is even standing up for other kids being picked on made its way to Wil Wheaton, who posted about the comment on his blog. “I’m so happy to learn that she and the girl who was mean to her have changed that relationship dynamic, but I’m so incredibly proud that she’s standing up against bullying with other kids in her school,” Wheaton wrote.

    In a tweet that likely relates to the situation, Wheaton has some advice for his more than two million Twitter followers:

    Wheaton isn’t the only celebrity to take a stand against bullying, although his comments on bullying have probably been the most eloquently stated. Nick Cannon, Taye Diggs, and Michelle Trachtenberg are just a few celebrities who have participated in the STOMP Out Bullying campaign.

    Image via Twitter

  • YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn & Twitter Are All Better Than Facebook For Post-Click Engagement [Report]

    YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn & Twitter Are All Better Than Facebook For Post-Click Engagement [Report]

    Shareaholic has a new report out called “Social Referrals That Matter,” which looks at the average visit duration, pages per visit, and bounce rates for visitors to its network of sites from the top 8 social media platforms.

    The report is based on data from over 200,000 sites, reaching over 250 million unique monthly visitors over a span of six months (September 2013 – February 2014). Specifically, it looks at data from YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, reddit, and StumbleUpon.

    The study found that YouTube beats all others for both average time on site and average pages per visit. Interestingly. Bounce rate is lower than all others as well.

    Google+ comes in second for post-click engagement, with pretty good numbers in all three categories. Interestingly, Facebook is all the way down at number 5.

    Shareaholic’s Danny Wong writes, “Why are visitors from YouTube so engaged? …because video itself is so engaging and viewers are likely to maintain a similar level of engagement with related content. Therefore, video watchers are especially receptive to links within video descriptions which complement the audio+visual content they just consumed. Another reason YouTube takes home the crown is because viewers are simply used to spending minutes — perhaps, hours — educating and entertaining themselves with awesome video and may have fewer qualms about taking extra time to discover more great content post-click.”

    “Although Google+ and LinkedIn drive the fewest social referrals, they bring in some of the best visitors. Google+ users, on average, find themselves spending north of 3 minutes diving into things shared by connections in their circles,” he adds. “They also visit 2.45 pages during each visit, and bounce only 50.63% of the time. LinkedIn users generally spend 2 minutes and 13 seconds on each link they click, viewing 2.23 pages with each visit and bouncing 51.28% of the time. Although many sites see minimal traffic from both Google+ and LinkedIn, now may be the time to invest in building communities within those networks if engagement really matters to your business.”

    Well, we certainly know businesses are growing increasingly frustrated with a certain other social network that has been decrasing the reach of their posts. In fact, one brand just announced that they’re so fed up with Facebook’s practices, they’re leaving the network entirely.

    It also just so happens that YouTube just released a new Creator playbook for brands.

    Both of these things make Shareaholic’s report all the more timely.

    Image via Shareaholic

  • A Big Sex Scandal Involving ‘Anti-Gay’ Republican Is Brewing, According to Some Redditor

    A Big Sex Scandal Involving ‘Anti-Gay’ Republican Is Brewing, According to Some Redditor

    It’s safe to say that the vast majority of the stuff people say on reddit is complete and utter bullshit. That’s because reddit exists on the internet, of which 99.9% is total bullshit. When anonymous users are given fake internet points for saying the most interesting or outrageous thing, why in the world would they stick to their boring lives? Lie away, Karma whores! Until I’m proven otherwise, I’ll remain cynical.

    But it is worth nothing that earlier this week, a redditor said that they’d been in a same-sex relationship with an anti-gay Republican US Senator for three years, and that they planned on going public with the story in about three weeks.

    Immediate reaction?

    The post occurred on r/AdviceAnimals, one of the site’s biggest subreddits. Our OP used the “confession bear” meme to state:

    “I’ve been in a secret same-sex relationship with an anti-gay Republican U.S. Senator for 3 year–I’m going public 3 weeks from today.”

    Both the user and post has been deleted, but you know as well as I do that nothing is ever truly deleted from the internet:

    The user who posted the meme was u/ClostedinKansas. I’ll let you glean from that what you will.

    The list of “things people have confessed to on reddit” is longer than the list of “major political scandals outed by redditors,” but this one is just funny. I’d love nothing more than to see an anti-gay Senator exposed in their hypocrisy, but I don’t think we should hold our breath on this one. Remember, fake internet points.

  • Martha Stewart Offers Best Sex Advice on Reddit

    Martha Stewart Offers Best Sex Advice on Reddit

    Reddit is like the Pinterest for men providing enormous amounts of random facts, stories, pictures and endless hours of entertainment.

    Every so often Reddit dedicates a portion of their entertaining tactics to the ever-popular AMA’s. Not familiar? The AMA’s or “Ask Me Anything” category invites different people from interesting walks of life (celebs included) to an open forum where Reddit users can literally ask them anything.

    The 72-year-old homemaker was asked some pretty interesting and rather hilarious questions. Unbelievably, Stewart answered them with grace and humbleness making her even more like-able.

    Stewart even went as far as divulging some interesting sex advice.

    When asked about her best sex tip she replied by saying, “Always take a bath before and after.”

    Yes. She did.

    A fan responded with, “Do it DURING a bath. Kills two birds with one stone.” Stewart replied with, “That’s good too, and don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

    And if you thought the prison talk wouldn’t come up, don’t fret-it did. When asked if she had a nickname in prison she replied with, “I think I did, but I can’t remember. …I don’t think about the past.”

    “I would not EVER, EVER deface my body with tattoos,” she replied when asked if she got inked up while behind bars.

    And perhaps the favorite question asked was about her unlikely friendship with Snoop Dogg.

    “I wish I were closer friends with Snoop Dogg.”

    Image Via YouTube

  • Sarah Michelle Gellar Ends the Debate: Spuffy or Bangel?

    Sarah Michelle Gellar Ends the Debate: Spuffy or Bangel?

    This week, Sarah Michelle Gellar used Reddit to break a billion Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans’ hearts by ending the much debated question: Spike or Angel?

    On Thursday, Gellar participated in a Reddit AMA (Ask me Anything). No question was off-limits as she gave her honest opinions on everything from Buffy to Scooby-Doo. Unfortunately this honesty didn’t end well for some Buffy fans who hoped she shared their obsession with a certain pairing. With the internet bringing out the passion in many fandoms, it’s hard to make an accurate assessment of where fans’ hearts really lie with certain characters and couples. However, no one can deny that Spuffy (Spike and Buffy) fans are the most vocal about their favorite couple.

    Three different fans tried to get Gellar to say she preferred Spike over Angel, but in the end she stood by her choice of Angelus over William-the-Bloody. Besides crushing your dreams, she also gave some more interesting tidbits about the production of the series, her dreams for its future, and how she felt about the cast.

    Here are a few other Buffy-related highlights from her AMA Reddit:

    What was your favorite Buffy episode to work on?

    I am in a room full of Buffy fans and everyone is yelling out their favorite episodes! My first one is The Prom because I just love that whole story, and I thought it just encapsulated the show so well. It was beautiful and heartbreaking. I also love Hush because I think it’s not just the scariest episode we’ve ever done but the challenge to do a silent episode – I thought it would be easy but it was way harder.And the other favorite I love is The Body, because it was beyond difficult and heart wrenching to shoot, and I don’t know if many people know this, but my entire first scene was all done in one take. It was 4-5 minutes of one long take.

    I know that Alyson was known for pranking everybody on the set, were you ever the victim?

    No I think I was more her co-conspirator.

    Buffy on Broadway. Yea or Nay?

    As long as Kristin Chenoweth plays me.

    Who was a better kisser, Angel or Spike? P.S. any answer other than Spike will be incorrect, but I need you to confirm.

    I’m sorry to disappoint. And again my apologies to Jamie [Boreanaz].

    What was your favorite “big bad” throughout Buffy?

    Ohhhh! I loved a couple. When Angel turned bad. Physically I think the scariest were the guys from Hush. And also Camden Toy, I can’t think of his character’s name right now. And I also liked it when I was the bad guy. And while we’re on this topic, I remember my other favorite episode, even though no one asked: I also liked the body switching episode where I got to play Faith and Faith got to play Buffy.

    Gellar may have crushed some Spuffy hearts, but isn’t it cool to know those “Hush” demons freaked her out as much as it freaked out many of the Buffy fans?

    Image via Sarah Michelle Gellar, Twitter

  • Reddit to Donate 10% of Ad Revenue to Charity

    Reddit to Donate 10% of Ad Revenue to Charity

    Although the massively popular beast that is the reddit machine is still struggling to turn a profit, that has in no way dampened its giving spirit. The company has just announced that it is going to donate 10% of this year’s advertising revenue to charity–charities that the reddit community votes upon.

    When 2014 comes to a close and reddit tallies up its total ad revenue, it’ll “hold an election” based on community-nominated charities. The top ten charities will receive some portion of the 10% ad revenue pie, proportional to how many votes each garners.

    “We want to show that advertising doesn’t just support the reddit platform, it also directly supports the causes and goals of reddit as a whole,” says reddit CEO Yishan Wong in a blog post.

    Of course, Wong knows that online votes are often manipulated by large online communities, for instance the one he runs, so he’s basically reserving the right to veto any “charities” that make it to the top via “obvious trolling.”

    “Ultimately, it will be up to all of you what happens – if things go well, the community will be responsible for disbursing a very real amount of money to a set of causes of your choice. If it doesn’t go well – then we’ll simply just pick by ourselves,” says Wong.

    Either way, that 10% is going somewhere other than reddit’s coffers.

    Wong took the reins as reddit CEO nearly two years ago. In that time, the “front page of the internet” has grown in ways few could have expected. But billions of pageviews do not necessarily an empire make, and Wong has admitted that reddit is still in the red.

    Reddit makes its money from three places, primarily: ads, selling reddit gold, and through the redditgifts marketplace. It’s the latter that Wong feels has the best chance of sustaining the site moving forward.

    “Our backers are saying, ‘Don’t worry about making money, just keep money and grow things,’” Wong said in an interview with Reuters in December. “But I would like Reddit to be self-sustaining because I think that’s a healthy way for a business to run. It means that what you’re doing provides real value, and Reddit Gifts is so promising because it can do that.”

    Image via reddit

  • Imgur Launches MemeGen Meme Generator App For iOS

    Imgur Launches MemeGen Meme Generator App For iOS

    Last summer, Imgur launched its meme generator tool. Now it has a standalone mobile app version of it, which launched today.

    The app, for now at least, is only available for iOS, which is interesting considering Imgur launched its main mobile app on Android first (both launched last year).

    In September, Imgur announced that it had reached 100,000,000 monthly unique users. It’s unclear what the exact usage numbers for the meme generator are, though Imgur obviously hosts tons of memes, which are frequently plastered throughout reddit.

    “Since we launched our Meme Generator for the web, its popularity has been growing,” Imgur says in a blog post. “The people have spoken, and they want Courage Wolf on their smartphones. More than 135,000 memes were created in the last 30 days. The MemeGen app will help Imgurians harness their creativity anywhere, anytime.”

    In addition to creating memes with the app, users can browse memes created by others via the Imgur Gallery. Any memes you create will be saved in your Imgur account.

    We assume an Android version will come later, but have yet to confirm. We’ve reached out for comment, and will update accordingly.

    Image via Imgur

  • We Sure Hope This Red Hot Chili Peppers Fan Likes Bagpipes

    We Sure Hope This Red Hot Chili Peppers Fan Likes Bagpipes

    Buying concert tickets online is always a scary proposition. Sure, most of the time it works out – most people out there are honest, right? But sometimes you’re left with a pair of tickets to see The Beagles. What, you thought the The Beatles were still touring? Hey buddy, that’s your fault.

    Name confusion is less likely to blame then simple fraud in this case. A redditor claims that his friend ordered two tickets to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers, only to receive tickets to see the “Red Hot Chilli Pipers” instead. “My friend paid $228 for two Red Hot Chili Peppers tickets, and got this in the mail…” they say. Is it a case of a simple misprint?

    As it turns out, it’s no misprint. The Red Hot Chilli Pipers are a real band – and a rather successful one at that.

    “Bagpipes with attitude. Drums with a Scottish accent. A blazing rock band and a show so hot it carries its own health warning. The Red Hot Chilli Pipers have been rocking the world from New York to Beijing with musicianship of the highest order and a passion for pipes that will leave you breathless,” reads the band’s site.

    The band, which was formed in 2002, is named after the more famous band of similar chili hotness – but they aren’t specifically a RCHP cover band. In fact, the Pipers are known for their bagpipe-heavy renditions of classic songs from the likes of Queen, Coldplay, Journey, and more. They’ve released 5 albums to date.

    “She paid for the peppers, unfortunately. I thought it was her own stupidity at first, but turns out the seller just scammed her.” says the redditor.

    But maybe it was OP’s friend’s sheer stupidity. The only tour dates on the RHCP’s current schedule are giant festival shows.

    Or maybe it’s all one big ad for the Red Hot Chilli Pipers. If so, we’ll change the angle of this story to “bagpipin’ cover band masters the reddit marketing machine.”

    Image via reddit, Imgur

  • Redditor ‘Socializes’ Duckling Using Beard

    Redditor ‘Socializes’ Duckling Using Beard

    In a series of revealing photos, a Reddit user known as ‘Spongi’ has documented his rearing of an abandoned duckling named “Peeps,” using his beard in place of its mother’s wing.

    While unsuccessfully attempting to hatch chicken eggs, Spongi inadvertently came across the duckling – “So my first attempt to hatch out chicken eggs failed, except it turns out one of the eggs in there was a duck egg and apparently duck eggs are more hardy or tolerant of shitty incubation techniques.”

    Spongi, also known online as “The Real Duck Commander,” raised Peeps in a bed next to his, though plans to set the bird free, once the weather changes. “Once it’s spring Peeps will be a free range duck,” Spongi wrote, adding, “I’ll provide grains, water and a shelter, but that’s it other than socialization of course. My chickens are practically no work.”

    Realizing that Peeps had no one to socialize with, Spongi took matters into his own beard – “So now I had a duckling. A single solitary duckling. Ducks are very social, raising a single duck is basically a death sentence, they will die of loneliness.”

    (image)

    Spongi explains why he’s added a towel to his beard incubator – “A towel was necessary, peeps poop a lot. “A lot” is an understatement.” Spongi adds a PRO-TIP, “Best time for social interaction is after the food dish has been empty a few hours. Do not feed then socialize, unless you do it outside. You will get pooped on, repeatedly.”

    (image)

    Spongi also notes that while raising a duck next to your face, “You will get pecked, but it doesn’t hurt. Unless it’s your eyeball. That hurts.”

    As of writing, Peeps has grown too large to fit into Spongi’s beard, so the two mostly just hang out and watch TV together. Spongi says that he has a few more duck eggs laying around, and that Peeps will likely have some new duck friends.

    Image via Imgur.

  • This Reddit Top-200 Visualization Will Help You Waste the Day Away

    This Reddit Top-200 Visualization Will Help You Waste the Day Away

    It’s almost the Thanksgiving holiday, so it’s not like you’re doing anything productive anyway.

    With that in mind, a new data visualization is here to kill hours, if not days of your life. It’s the 200 top-scoring reddit posts of all time, organized by subreddit.

    When it comes to “score” (the net numbers of upvotes minus downvotes), it’s clear that reddit’s r/funny and r/pics subreddits dominate the top 200. The top 200 most-popular reddit links of all time also include 5 from r/WTF, 4 from r/todayIlearned, and 1 from r/music.

    You can also re-sort the interactive chart to show a visualization of the top 200 based on comments. As you would expect, doing this gives more real estate to comment-happy subreddits like r/IAmA and r/AskReddit. FYI, the top reddit AMAs, in terms of score and comments, are Barack Obama’s, Bill Gates’, Snoop Lion’s, and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s.

    The interactive chart was created by James Trimble, a computing science student at Glasgow University. His site, UK Data Explorer, features a ton of different style of data maps, all exploring public data.

    Go check out the visualization and kill some time here.

    UK Data Explorer via Mashable
    Images via UK Data Explorer, reddit

  • Reddit Will Livestream RedditGifts Shopping Network On Black Friday

    Reddit Will Livestream RedditGifts Shopping Network On Black Friday

    Reddit announced that it will be hosting an eight-hour livestream on redditgifts.com and its YouTube channel for Black Friday to embrace the “commercial chaos” and “perversion” of the retail holiday head on.

    After listing several years worth of Black Friday fatalities and injuries, reddit’s erik [hueypriest] says in a blog post:

    Black Friday is absurd.

    The day after thanksgiving has mutated into a disgusting, crowded, and sometimes dangerous national holiday in the US. It’s the manic lovechild of a /r/Murica, /r/wheredidthesodago, and /r/hailcorporate threesome after one-too-many Watermelon martinis one night at Olive Garden. It’s become an increasingly hyped and sprawling holiday ritual, but there’s still some magic in a cultural tradition spending time with family, no matter how crass the motive. Unless you work in retail, that is. In which case, welcome to Hell.

    It’s in this spirit that reddit will host the livestream, which it says is “part home-shopping-network, part old-school-holiday-vareity-show, part fundraiser telethon, and part Muppets Take Manhattan”.

    They’ll be featuring small merchants from the redditgifts marketplace, musical acts, comedians and celebrity redditors.

    Should be interesting.

    It will last from 12:00 PM to 8:00 PM Eastern. More details here.

    Image: YouTube

  • Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian Talks Open Internet with Stephen Colbert

    Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian Talks Open Internet with Stephen Colbert

    Last night, Stephen Colbert’s guest on The Colbert Report was reddit co-founder and open internet advocate Alexis Ohanian. Ohanian is promoting his new book, Without Their Permission, where he explores “the future of the internet for fun, profit, and the good of humankind.”

    What Colbert refers to as “cultural socialism” is actually the democratization of the internet, and more importantly, ideas – according to Ohanian. Check out the two discuss reddit, crowdfunding, and the free internet below. Also, bonus points to Colbert for bringing giant upvotes and downvotes to the party:

    Image via screencap, Comedy Central

  • Lil’ Kim Took a Redditor’s Awesome Zombie Makeup Art and Used It to Promote Her New Song

    Lil’ Kim Took a Redditor’s Awesome Zombie Makeup Art and Used It to Promote Her New Song

    So, Lil’ Kim has a new album coming out and has been promoting a new song called “Dead Gal Walking.” It’s making a lot of news, but unfortunately for Lil’ Kim, the reason has nothing to do with the song itself.

    It’s the album artwork that people are talking about – mainly the fact that it’s totally not hers.

    Here’s the image that Lil’ Kim’s been using to promoted the new track. Pretty cool image, right?

    The only problem is that the image belongs to redditor and makeup artist Samantha Ravndahl, known online as Sssamanthaa. It serves as the finished product of a how-to guide she posted on reddit’s popular MakeupAddiction subreddit, HOW TO: Pop Art Zombie Tutorial. Not only that, but she’s been posting it on her other social accounts since October 9th.

    Ravndahl is the makeup artist, photographer, and subject of the image in question. She recently posted this to reddit’s legal advice subreddit, under the heading “Lil Kim took my photo and is using it as album art for her new shitty song”:

    So, this is a thing that’s been happening. Lil Kim took my photo and is using it as album art (might I add she took the liberty of adding her watermark over it on instagram). I have spoken with a lady on her team as well as her manager, which has done a whole lot of nothing. I’ve reported the photos on Facebook and Instagram multiple times, but they are continually posted. Anyone have any thoughts on what to do here? I live in BC, Canada.

    Despite speaking to Lil’ Kim’s team, the rapper continues to promote her new song with the image. She even put her own watermark on the image and posted it on Instagram:

    Sssamanthaa says that she has plans to consult a lawyer. After receiving some classy feedback from Lil’ Kim fans like “Fuck u and your artwork cracker bitch, You should be flattered Kimmy even noticed it!,” she just posted this little disclaimer on Instagram:

    I expect we’ll be covering this more in the future. I’m not an IP lawyer and uploading images to the internet comes with a ridiculously confusing set of rules – depending on which site you use – so I won’t venture into what I think will happen here. Stay tuned.

    Image via Samantha Ravndahl, Sssamanthaa, Instagram