Reddit is starting its own news site and what could be a better name than “Upvoted”.
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“The stuff our community creates on a daily basis blows our mind”, Upvoted’s editorial teamtold Wired.
Upvoted will feature 10 to 20 new articles a day. As Wired reports, Upvoted will seem similar to most other news sites, presenting everything from stories, pictures/videos, infographics, and more, from a variety of categories including lifestyle, science, politics, technology, and sports.
The site will not include comments, which comes as a surprise as Reddit is built on comments.
Somewhat sanitising Reddit’s inarguably succinct flow of breaking news and eye-witness accounts, viewers will not be able to leave comments or vote up or down on stories.
Upvoted will be all about the happenings on Reddit itself-potentially covering everything from excerpts of question-and-answer sessions with presidential candidates to backstories behind amusing animated gifs to, of course, Random Acts of Pizza. Taylor’s dismissal led to an online revolt by the site’s users and eventually the resignation of interim CEO Ellen Pao. Upvoted, which will launch with no comments section, looks like a play to create something more palatable to advertisers.
Upvoted will be headed by former MySpace editorial director Vickie Chang.
While Upvoted stories won’t be given preferential treatment on Reddit, one can imagine Reddit users being more inclined to upvote them. This team will not only find the stories on Reddit, but add and piece them together by verifying details, interviewing the users behind the stories, as well as filling in any gaps or additional background. “If it’s a topic of discussion, the community is always going to be our first priority”. Now, the social news site is taking matters into its own hands, with the launch of a new editorial site that will take advantage of Reddit’s deep well of user-generated content. Traditional news outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, have also embraced the ad format as a way to increase revenue.
The firm reportedly plans to produce stories from content posted on the parent site, as well as content paid for and approved by advertisers.
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“I think this is a step in the right direction, but not the end of Reddit’s journey to find a brand-safe environment for marketers”, said Book, who praised Upvoted’s sleeker design and native placements. “No matter what, it will be good content and it will just happened to be sponsored”, Chang said.
