Reddit
is a social networking platform with an increasing popularity since it was
established in 2005. The number of Reddit visitors passed over 170.7 million
monthly. Reddit has become a growing news source among social media platforms.
The
word Reddit is coming from two words; read it. Similar to other social media
sites, Reddit has own terminology and acronyms such as redditting (sharing,
voting or commenting on Reddit), redditor (reddit user), subreddit (communities
or subtopics created by redditors), AMA (Ask Me Anything) and TIL (Today I
Learn).
To
open a new account in Reddit is very easy. Users don’t have to use their real
names and personal information to register. Also users can’t share someone’s
personal information including real or online identiy. For example, Facebook or
Twitter profiles shouldn’t be posted. Actually, Reddit encourages its users to
create more public contents than private. But it has some tools like AMA which
people show up with their real identity and communicate with Redditors in real
time. After opening an account, users can define their preferences and
subscribe to Subreddits depending on their interests. Besides five basic rulesof Reddit, users can create their specific rules for subreddits managed by volunteer
moderators.
Reddit
simply relies on users’ sharing and voting the contents. Redditors upvote or
downvote the shared contents. The links which users voted the most go up, so
the front page of Reddit change constantly. The voting tool helps Reddit to
find and put forward the best or the most interested topics, arguments and
comments. Therefore, Reddit makes a list of the most popular and interesting
links on the web, which the community read and approve.
Public
sector can use Reddit to see how people vote, response and comment on their
policies, projects or any other initiatives. Government agencies can directly
target their specific audiences on Reddit. They can explain issues, answer
questions in an interactive way. Also
non-profits can launch a fundraising event and benefit from the auidences on
Reddit. For bussiness purposes, people can create own networks through
subreddits and advertise their bussiness. Additionally, political figures can send
posts related their political campaigns. The US President Barack Obama used AMA
tool before 2012 presidential elections, and answer the question asked by
redditors.
On the
other hand, Reddit can become a platform of vialotions and speculations. One example
of these shortcomings was the “r/findbostonbombers” thread. Redditors came up with
several people as suspects just after Boston bombings. However, they targeted
wrong people, and one of them, who was a student Brown University, found dead.
Reddit apologized from the family of the student.
Comparing
to other social networking services, Reddit has some different charachteristics. For
instance, Reddit compiles and classifies the contents according to their popularity,
which is defined by the votes of redditors, while Twitter provides short and
key points from the breaking news and users’ opinions. Twitter and other social
media services do not have a ranking or voting system as Reddit has. Moreover, people use Twitter to
follow individuals or institutions based on their relationship and interests.
However, on Reddit people follows mainly topics based on their interest. Additionally,
Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Storify, Pinterest and other social media services
usually have very eye-catching websites with colorful icons, pictures, links
and scripts. On the other hand, Reddit looks very old fashioned, and its
website is not as attractive as other social media’s front pages. Reddit
focuses more on the content itself rather than the beautification of the
content. Finally yet importantly, Reddit has greatest capacity with 300
characters for only titles and 15,000 for posts, and 10,000 for comments. Thus,
people can get their voices heard more on this virtual media platform.
Consequently, important characteristics and some evaluations of Reddit have been explained here so far. From now on then, to reddit or not to reddit is up to you..
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