Reddit calls itself ‘The Front Page of the Internet,’ and for many who visit, this may as well be true. Reddit.com is ranked #32 in the world and #9 in the United States for site traffic. A link on the home page of Reddit.com will almost certainly create tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of page views. With about 70 million unique visitors a month and approximately five billion page views, Reddit generates more traffic than the New York Times, Fox News, and Skype.
Of course, be careful what you wish for: some smaller sites with content linking to Reddit have received the Reddit effect, otherwise known as the ‘hug of death.’ That happens when traffic back to the linked site is so big that it crashes the overloaded servers.
For those who haven’t visited, Reddit is website with news, entertainment, and social media content. Much of that content is created by registered community members, and includes texts, direct links, video, and pictures. In a nutshell, Reddit is an online bulletin board system.
Bulletin Board Systems have been around since the earliest days of dial-up modems, and originate before there was such a thing as a graphical user interface (GUI) which meant early bulletin boards online were text only. These early BBS sites were still very big back in the day—in 1994, 17 million users in the U.S. alone constituted a bigger market together than the major online services (anyone remember CompuServe?) The BBS sites were devoted to a variety of different interests, and were controlled by the person who’d set the whole thing up.
Evolution always happens, and the first attempt to create a network beyond local private BBS communities was the creation of Usenet, aimed at the general public. Emoticons, flaming, trolls, and lots of slang acronyms like “LOL” found their first use on Usenet.
And while no one can say the founders of Reddit didn’t sell an idea that proved immensely profitable, today most people are hard pressed to accurately describe the real operational differences between Reddit and Usenet.
There are some overwhelming similarities:
- Both Reddit and Usenet usage centers around accessing online content of interest.
- Reddit allows members to post content; Usenet allows members to post content
- Both Reddit and Usenet have text, pictures, links, & social interaction.
- Content is categorized by interest in Reddit as ‘subreddits;’ in Usenet these categories are called “Newsgroups.”
- Both Usenet and Reddit foster a sense of ‘community’ in the online members who view and post content in the specialized groups.
- Both Usenet and Reddit have a significant amount of (ahem!) salacious content.
- Everyone around the world can access the content in both Usenet and Reddit.
And some differences:
- Reddit is privately owned by Conde Nast.
- Usenet is decentralized, and not owned by any single organization.
- Reddit can easily be accessed with any web browser—though many find navigating through the site is a complete mess.
- Usenet virtually requires a dedicated newsreader program to use the content.
A dedicated newsreader program like Newsdemon.com offers powerful ways to search, navigate, and manage messages in Usenet newsgroups. Most find that the specialty groups inside of Usenet to be very useful, with credible information inside. The wide-open nature of Reddit has naturally led to some of the content being of a less useful nature, and because the web is kind of a lowest-common-denominator interface which is simply ‘good enough’ for the Reddit video gamers and “Gone Wild” subscribers. Or, as the New York Times categorized them, the typical Redditor… a nerdy, pervy, compulsively masturbating pothead.
Of course, you can find virtually any kind of content you’d like with Usenet as well. If you like Reddit, you’ll likely like Usenet. So if you haven’t looked at Usenet newsgroups, get yourself a newsreader program like Newsdemon.com and see what you’ve been missing on Reddit. You’ll get fast, reliable, secure Premium Usenet Access, 256-Bit secure server connections, and a FREE TRIAL.
What’s to lose? Just visit https://newsdemon.com, create an account, download the free software, and have at it! Access, search, and share the best of Usenet Newsgroups with Newsdemon.com
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