Maybe I should have wrote the article. I have a 6 year badge on Reddit. In a few more months it'll roll over to be a 7 year badge.
Currently the various revenue streams:
1. Reddit Gold. Pay $3 for a month of pure margins for Reddit. In return the user gets account modifications, minor UX tweaks, ability to save links. Within the community it's often used to reward others for their posts or contributions. Often gets handed out in the larger more mainstream subreddits, especially AskReddit where the user generated content worthy of merit earn one or two or sometimes even ten little gold stars.
2. Ads. Self-service model, pay $20 and get crazy CPMs from a group of people that have adblock on.
3. Merchandise. T-shirts out the wazoo. Reddit makes $5 to $8 a shirt from official channels and various other knick knacks from redditgifts.com
4. Exchanges. You buy exchange credits to trade amongst each other in the community, things like socks, shirts, snacks. They keep exploring new verticals, now there are comics and a variety of other things.
Reddit has the same problem as Tumblr. They both essentially are feeds that's replaced Facebook for a big demographics that in turn has replaced television with said feeds.
Tumblr is embracing native ads, they opened an LA office to better interface with media buyers. They're shooting for the moon on closing 6 figure accounts to sell more native ads.
Currently the various revenue streams:
1. Reddit Gold. Pay $3 for a month of pure margins for Reddit. In return the user gets account modifications, minor UX tweaks, ability to save links. Within the community it's often used to reward others for their posts or contributions. Often gets handed out in the larger more mainstream subreddits, especially AskReddit where the user generated content worthy of merit earn one or two or sometimes even ten little gold stars.
2. Ads. Self-service model, pay $20 and get crazy CPMs from a group of people that have adblock on.
3. Merchandise. T-shirts out the wazoo. Reddit makes $5 to $8 a shirt from official channels and various other knick knacks from redditgifts.com
4. Exchanges. You buy exchange credits to trade amongst each other in the community, things like socks, shirts, snacks. They keep exploring new verticals, now there are comics and a variety of other things.
Reddit has the same problem as Tumblr. They both essentially are feeds that's replaced Facebook for a big demographics that in turn has replaced television with said feeds.
Tumblr is embracing native ads, they opened an LA office to better interface with media buyers. They're shooting for the moon on closing 6 figure accounts to sell more native ads.
Reddit is going the less glamorous route.
We'll see who wins.