Does Reddit Have What It Takes To Succeed?

Recent reports are out boasting the unthinkable growth Reddit.com has encountered in 2010, a 230% increase in pageviews a month compared to the beginning of 2010. The main reason for the boost in traffic reason? How about the tragic self implosion of Digg.com(their main competitor). Back in August of 2010 Digg went under a major overhaul that has left many users looking else where for fresh content.

With Digg shooting themselves in foot, this left the door wide open for another site to take control of the social bookmarking/voting market.

Some sites have popped up here and there to try to make a splash in the market but no one has made any lasting traction. It seemed like a good fit for Reddit to take the reigns for two reasons:

They have been around for awhile which means they have stability
The traffic generation can be just as good as the “Digg effect“

However, in their current state of functions, features and layout it leaves nothing to write home about and could lead to their own failure.

The Good

If you want funny content, head over to Reddit. Most of hilariously funny posts you see on other voting sites are probably reposts that came from Reddit’s WTF, Funny, Pics sections.
They’re ability to keep a clean user neutrality with little spam is extremely good. Almost too good. Sometimes your greatest asset is your greatest weakness though.
You can find a variety of topics of choice to fit your indulgence, if you search long enough (but that’s the problem).

The Bad

You cannot tell me that you have been to this site and had the overwhelming feeling that this site is eye candy. Reddit is absolutely horrible to look at. I beg you Reddit, improve your looks a little bit… just a little? The typical response to this from any hardcore Redditor is “Reddit is ugly on purpose to keep those who don’t get it – out.” So let me get this straight; You want it to be ugly because you’re too cool for the rest of us? It kind of sounds like we are back in High School.
Reddit will ban you in a sec. I’ll probably get banned just for talking about Reddit in this article. This goes back to their spam filter being an asset and a huge weakness at the same time. There is no rhyme or reason to the madness. I’ve talked to so many people about this very issue and they still say they just don’t get it. On a side note you could be banned for weeks and you have no idea. No email, no notification in anyway that you have been banned comes from Reddit. You can login like normal, use the site like normal, make comments and submit posts but you are just spinning your wheels. The only way to know whether you are banned is to log out of your account and try to browse to your profile page. You will get the Reddit 404 error page if you are banned.
Automatically deleted submissions happens ALL the time. It could be legit, interesting or funny content but for some odd reason Reddit will ghost ban the post(delete). This is similar to ghost banning your user ID. You can see your submission in your profile but your submission never makes it the the category you tried to submit to. It won’t even show up in search results. Poof, gone… It’s as if it never existed, leaving behind some very frustrated users.

Where Do You Want To Go Reddit?

One of the main questions with any business plan is; where do you see yourself in a year? What are your goals?

Here is your dilemma, Reddit. You have the world in your hand right now and you can call your own shots. You have frustrated Digg users flooding your site and you have a decision to make. Are you going to change for them and facilitate growth with the potential for higher dollars? or Are you going to maintain your status quo, leave the site the way it is and keep your core users happy with little growth? I have a feeling if you don’t change anything all the new users are going to get bored really quick, because these are users from a different breed.

I, on one hand, am fine with either direction. I would just like to know which direction it is so I can be a part of it.

Tagged as: digg, reddit, social media, stumble upon