5 ms·

2.7 million total image views after Reddit content experiment.

41 points by zackbigdog 14y ago

zoidb 14y ago
Not sure what meaningful conclusions you can draw from this. In my experience what makes a post popular is something like 50% content, 25% title and 25% timing. That's a lot of variance, I imagine with different wording and/or timing of the submissions your results might have been dramatically different. I've definitely seen posts that go nowhere the first day but go but the top of the front-page when it's re-posted verbatim or slightly reworded by someone else.
- zackbigdog 14y ago
  I would say the conclusion is pretty much what you said. 50% content, 40% title and 10% timing makes a successful post. (obviously for break news/trending events timing is everything - my focus was on content that could be leveraged at any time)
mdwe 14y ago
The page is only showing the first few sentences on my iPad, before the footer covers it up. :/
- 001sky 14y ago
  I had this 'problem' to, on a macbook...unless this is some sort of Irony-by-design? [edit: on firefox]
  - zackbigdog 14y ago
    Sorry guys i just launched the design. Any ideas how to fix would be appreciated. Also has issues in IE. I use chrome so didnt notice
    - msbarnett 14y ago
      Obvious starting point: test in more than one browser. Many have tools you can use to explore the DOM and figure out what you did wrong.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
baxter 14y ago
I'm not sure if my brain is failing me but... "I calculated a less than 0.001% chance of posts (content) making the front page of Reddit. That is a 1/1000 chance." Surely 1% is a 1 in 100 chance, 0.1% is a 1 in 1,000 chance, 0.001% would be 1 in 100,000 chance. Have I made a critical error here?
- zackbigdog 14y ago
  good point - thanks
citricsquid 14y ago
65,127 total upvotes 57,835 total down votes The figures displayed on reddit are not accurate -- unless they've changed recently.
- Achshar 14y ago
  Reddit adds downvotes to account for spam votes. I don't know how they know they are spam votes though. Also it's curious, if they know a vote is spam, why not just not count it at all instead of adding a downvote?
  - nivloc 14y ago
    They fuzz the numbers displayed - everything internally uses the real upvote/downvote count. It's so bots can't figure out if they've been flagged or not.
true_religion 14y ago
I noticed you used all imgur links. Did anyone visit your site after you begun watermarking your images?
- zackbigdog 14y ago
  Yeah - for every 50-100 image views someone would visit my site.
grecy 14y ago
DO you have details on what time of day you chose to pose these? I think most people agree time of day plays a part.
- fourstar 14y ago
  About two years ago a friend and myself curled digg and reddit for a couple weeks analyzing trends of submissions. We ended up getting the infographic itself to #1 on reddit and on the frontpage of Digg (during its relevancy). http://www.raterush.com/pages/digg-reddit http://www.raterush.com/pages/digg-reddit Granted, it's a little outdated, but that might be of interest to you.
- omra 14y ago
  (I'm not the poster, but you can find the times of reddit links by mousing over the timestamp.) * Found this on my windshield today. Good people rule. - Mon Jul 2 19:50:42 2012 UTC * 15 years ago my mom made me take "glamour shots". She sent me this today. - Wed Sep 12 12:18:08 2012 UTC * Photographer snuck this gem into my cousins wedding album. - Fri Sep 14 00:41:23 2012 UTC * My friend won't approach cliff edges because he says the risk isn't worth it. This is how he looks over, every time. - Thu Sep 27 00:03:55 2012 UTC The best times to post are given here: http://blog.reddit.com/2011/07/nerd-talk-tale-of-life-of-link-on.html http://blog.reddit.com/2011/07/nerd-talk-tale-of-life-of-lin...
sixQuarks 14y ago
I fail to see what value this has other than getting a cheap thrill. It's not that difficult to get images with witty comments onto the front page. What's difficult is being able to promote a message or product.
0ca0 14y ago
The page doesn't seem to work right. Consider using noscript elements if your site is broken without javascript.
witoldc 14y ago
If you had the images on your site, would you expect this to raise your Google Page Rank?

41 points by zackbigdog 14y ago

zoidb 14y ago

Not sure what meaningful conclusions you can draw from this. In my experience what makes a post popular is something like 50% content, 25% title and 25% timing. That's a lot of variance, I imagine with different wording and/or timing of the submissions your results might have been dramatically different. I've definitely seen posts that go nowhere the first day but go but the top of the front-page when it's re-posted verbatim or slightly reworded by someone else.

zackbigdog 14y ago
I would say the conclusion is pretty much what you said. 50% content, 40% title and 10% timing makes a successful post. (obviously for break news/trending events timing is everything - my focus was on content that could be leveraged at any time)

mdwe 14y ago

The page is only showing the first few sentences on my iPad, before the footer covers it up. :/

001sky 14y ago
I had this 'problem' to, on a macbook...unless this is some sort of Irony-by-design? [edit: on firefox]
- zackbigdog 14y ago
  Sorry guys i just launched the design. Any ideas how to fix would be appreciated. Also has issues in IE. I use chrome so didnt notice
  - msbarnett 14y ago
    Obvious starting point: test in more than one browser. Many have tools you can use to explore the DOM and figure out what you did wrong.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

baxter 14y ago

I'm not sure if my brain is failing me but... "I calculated a less than 0.001% chance of posts (content) making the front page of Reddit. That is a 1/1000 chance." Surely 1% is a 1 in 100 chance, 0.1% is a 1 in 1,000 chance, 0.001% would be 1 in 100,000 chance. Have I made a critical error here?

zackbigdog 14y ago
good point - thanks

citricsquid 14y ago

65,127 total upvotes 57,835 total down votes The figures displayed on reddit are not accurate -- unless they've changed recently.

Achshar 14y ago
Reddit adds downvotes to account for spam votes. I don't know how they know they are spam votes though. Also it's curious, if they know a vote is spam, why not just not count it at all instead of adding a downvote?
- nivloc 14y ago
  They fuzz the numbers displayed - everything internally uses the real upvote/downvote count. It's so bots can't figure out if they've been flagged or not.

true_religion 14y ago

I noticed you used all imgur links. Did anyone visit your site after you begun watermarking your images?

zackbigdog 14y ago
Yeah - for every 50-100 image views someone would visit my site.

grecy 14y ago

DO you have details on what time of day you chose to pose these? I think most people agree time of day plays a part.

fourstar 14y ago
About two years ago a friend and myself curled digg and reddit for a couple weeks analyzing trends of submissions. We ended up getting the infographic itself to #1 on reddit and on the frontpage of Digg (during its relevancy). http://www.raterush.com/pages/digg-reddit http://www.raterush.com/pages/digg-reddit Granted, it's a little outdated, but that might be of interest to you.
omra 14y ago
(I'm not the poster, but you can find the times of reddit links by mousing over the timestamp.) * Found this on my windshield today. Good people rule. - Mon Jul 2 19:50:42 2012 UTC * 15 years ago my mom made me take "glamour shots". She sent me this today. - Wed Sep 12 12:18:08 2012 UTC * Photographer snuck this gem into my cousins wedding album. - Fri Sep 14 00:41:23 2012 UTC * My friend won't approach cliff edges because he says the risk isn't worth it. This is how he looks over, every time. - Thu Sep 27 00:03:55 2012 UTC The best times to post are given here: http://blog.reddit.com/2011/07/nerd-talk-tale-of-life-of-link-on.html http://blog.reddit.com/2011/07/nerd-talk-tale-of-life-of-lin...

sixQuarks 14y ago

I fail to see what value this has other than getting a cheap thrill. It's not that difficult to get images with witty comments onto the front page. What's difficult is being able to promote a message or product.

0ca0 14y ago

The page doesn't seem to work right. Consider using noscript elements if your site is broken without javascript.

witoldc 14y ago

If you had the images on your site, would you expect this to raise your Google Page Rank?