One of the oldest and boldest partnerships to date has just taken it up a notch with a new project that’s been driving all sorts of community opinions, raising plenty of questions, and leaving everyone wondering how the mammoths’ new demeanor could transform online searches and forums as they’re known today.
Reddit has long been a treasure trove for authentic, user-generated information and data on any topic that could cross one’s mind, drawing 500 million internauts to the platform monthly and boasting a daily userbase of around 52 million, as Wikipedia data shows. Broken up into millions of “subreddits,” the platform praised as the “front page of the internet” and ranking 8th in the top most visited websites worldwide, the abundance of information and actual knowledge stored is of unequaled potential to drive the new AI wave. Google, the largest promotor of Reddit, having the website’s post ranking first for the bigger majority of queries, has leveraged the prowess and insights possessed, only in different ways than the bigwig is planning to do from now on.
The two leading companies’ handshake on a $60K-worth deal for mutual help in building the AI models and search engine of tomorrow is now all over the AI news worldwide, birthing all sorts of theories, hypotheses, opinions, and impressions that may or may not serve as a repository of intelligence for Google’s current proposition. What should the world expect, watch, and do from now on? Should communities change, increase, or limit their engagement with these apps?
Google and Reddit – a sneaky match out in the open?
Reddit has long been a valuable information supplier for the largest SEO-winning website, Google, and everyone stumbling across the platform’s content for every search made could easily see this. However, it’s only in recent days that the world’s search results have been flooded with subreddits, with all the voices pointing to Google’s strategy to gather more significant amounts of fresh and genuine user-provided content and data for long-term purposes. As the company that’s been the first to monetize its leading position among competitors through “AdWords” remarked, Reddit is a fantastic source of “authentic, human conversations and experiences,” underscoring the database’s potential to benefit the larger community. In other words, the undertaking aims to expand knowledge for everyone else who uses Google by allowing them easier, more unbiased access, starting the contest between the two.
The new partnership will open a new era for recommendations on products and services, ratings, and travel advice, all funneled through Google products. But, how is the collaboration facilitating brands’ ad popping, also known as “free-form” ads, henceforth?
New ad format is being tested
Reddit has just announced the emergence of a new and “completely unique ad format” aimed at enhancing upvotes and click-through rates by diminishing the gap between user posts and brand advertisements. The “free-form ads” will possess all the qualities of daily user posts, such as lists, videos, and photos, among others, so in plain words, telling a Reddit post from an ad is bound to become more complex. Megathreads are statedly the source of inspiration for the new ad formats, resembling some “one-stop-shops” for dialogues on hot topics.
Free-form ads, intended to look and feel like content-full posts popping up on users’ feeds, may differ from user posts through something as eye-grabbing as a promoted label. As such, fewer specific user posts will be targeted through ads, though users will easily differentiate one from the other.
Big brands such as Leica, Kraft Heins, and Eat Takeaway are already giving a spin to the new service trials, with other heavyweights waiting in line. A 28% growth in the click-through rates has already been registered during early studies, alongside fresh and boosted user engagement, in the light of the previously launched new tool suite titled Reddit Pro. All this news came while Reddit was already planning and working on launching an IPO, offering their shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the RDDT ticker symbol.
Why are tags like “toxicity” and “tactlessness” permeating Reddit?
Evidently, the first to share their opinions on the new demeanors involving the two of the world’s largest companies were the Redditors themselves, whose perspectives are just as numerous as the number of subreddits out there. For some, Google could be wasting time and effort to make something out of unresearched comments from self-made gurus and neophytes. In contrast, others bet on the randomness of the public statements made by authors subjected to almost no rules or outer control.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, many are praising the understated and unequaled value held by authors’ direct involvement, taking the form of shared experiences and genuine advice, underscoring the benefits that internauts can reap from the data’s processing henceforth.
Whether the comments are “cringe,” “insightful, or “unearthed diamonds,” boils down to every commentator’s experience on the platform, yet, undoubtedly, the upcoming months will be full of excitement and bringing about newness to ruminate.
Everything happened ahead of IPO
In light of the latest statements and disclosures, the bigwig online discussion site snitched on its plans to list the company’s shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) using the abbreviation of RDDT as the ticker symbol. Besides, the fresh and promising addition on NYSE that’s been riding high so far helped by the debuting price of $34 augurs a new era for the investor’s world and beyond, notably opening new opportunities.
Reddit gives away nothing besides its published deal-based statement, but staying posted on the news will keep you in the loop with everything there is to know.
Props to Reddit for keeping it simple
Unlike other social media platforms such as Facebook or TikTok, Reddit enabled users to find their topics and subreddits of interest without being guided by underlying algorithm processes designed to guess the next point of interest for the utilizer. Reddit has been doing things differently ever since it was launched in 2005, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that some exciting new features, services, and offerings are on the horizon, helping build the search engine and AI models of tomorrow.