Reddit was founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman, Aaron Swartz, and Alexis Ohanian. Since then, it has become one of the largest and liveliest social platforms on the internet. Without Reddit, we might never have AMAs. It’s not quite as mainstream as platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, but Reddit’s seemingly infinite supply of communities — known as subreddits — has made it one of the web’s best sources of information and conversation. But Reddit has also been a magnet for controversy: Redditors have used the platform to spread misinformation and coordinate harassment, and it has been a source of illegal and problematic content for years. In 2023, Reddit brought more controversy on itself, announcing new plans to charge for its API that led to Apollo and other third-party apps shutting down along with a mass protest from users. And of course, like so many other things, the whole fight seemed to happen on Reddit.
The company saw Daily Active Uniques (“DAUq”) increase 39 percent year-over-year to 101.7 million, according to its Q4 2024 earnings press release.
A chart in Reddit’s shareholder letter details the growth of the metric quarter-over-quarter, and I’ve included it below.
Dozens of subreddits announced they’re banning links to posts on X, following Elon Musk’s appearance at a Donald Trump event where he made a gesture that looks a lot like a Nazi salute.
r/NBA is taking the X ban a step further and will also ban links to Meta platforms, moderators announced today.
Communities including r/hockey, r/NFL, r/NBA, r/MLB, and r/MLS are discussing the possibility, as reported by Awful Announcing.
Part of the reason is that X posts sometimes aren’t accessible if you’re logged out or don’t have an account. But I’ve also seen users bring up X owner Elon Musk.
[Awful Announcing]
Reddit is renaming its Content Policy — it’s now called the Reddit Rules. “The name “Reddit Rules” better reflects that our policies govern both content AND behavior on Reddit,” a Reddit admin says. “This is just a name change and doesn’t affect the content of the rules themselves.”
I’ve updated my story from yesterday if you’d like to see some of it.
Publishers like Rolling Stone and The New York Times are sizing up Reddit as a potential source of significant traffic, according to Adweek.
Reddit’s visibility in Google Search has skyrocketed this year, making the platform an attractive place for marketers and the SEO industry. But media of all industries should know that relying on outside platforms historically hasn’t gone well.
The platform saw an average of 91.2 million “daily active uniques” in the second quarter of 2024, which it says is “an all-time high and an increase of 51% year-over-year.” Seems last year’s protests may not have done all that much to drive users away long term.
[Reddit]
It’s one of a few updates the company shared in a post how it will support Reddit communities during elections. Reddit also plans to release an “after-election report” in Q1 2025 about how things went on the platform and is experimenting with a dedicated tip line for moderators to escalate election-related concerns.
Keith Gill, the same Redditor who sparked a frenzy in 2021 has returned, and the stock is spiking again. The WSJ reports that in addition to E*Trade’s discussions, SEC officials are having “internal discussions” about whether the new posts amount to manipulation.
Meanwhile, Gill posted another screenshot this afternoon showing an account with shares and options now worth $260 million.
Reddit’s daily users grew 37 percent to 82.7 million during its first quarter as a public company. CEO Steve Huffman said on the earnings call that 60 percent of those users are logged out and coming mostly from Google.
“Googlebot likes speed” and Reddit has focused on improving load times, he said. More on the numbers below:
It ended trading at roughly $50, which means the business is valued at about $9.5 billion. That’s quite a pop from the $34 that Reddit priced its shares at going into the IPO. As a result, everyone who bought in at that price— like Reddit power users — saw a nice gain today.
Reddit (RDDT) is officially open for trading. According to CNBC, Reddit and selling shareholders raised about $750 million from the IPO.
With its current share price of $48, the 19-year-old website now has a market cap of $7.6 billion as it pursues business growth via “advertising, monetizing commerce on the platform, and licensing data.”
Reddit’s IPO, which will have the ticker symbol RDDT, is making its debut tomorrow. Sources tell CNBC it’s priced at the “top” of the $31 to $34 range it targeted, which puts the social platform at a valuation of around $6.5 billion.
Many of the Redditors I spoke to did not care for the IPO. I went on Marketplace to talk about the usefulness of Reddit as an online community — and why that may just be really difficult to make profitable.
In an amended SEC filing ahead of its IPO, Reddit warned potential investors that “...on March 18, 2024, Nokia Technologies sent us a letter indicating they believed that Reddit infringes certain of their patents. We will evaluate their claims.”
Nokia, of course, leaned into, ahem, patent licensing and networking equipment as its business many years ago, and reminded people of it with last year’s logo redesign. Companies paying Nokia licensing fees include HTC, Apple, and more recently, Oppo.
The company hopes to raise up to $748 million when it goes public by selling about 22 million shares at $31 to $34 per share, according to a public filing issued Monday after Bloomberg first reported the number.
Part of its plan will rest on its own users and moderators, for whom the company will set aside 1.76 million shares. Reddit’s valuation would be down from the $10 billion it hoped for when it first filed to go public in 2021.
Update March 11th, 6:41AM ET: Added official filing.
Ahead of its IPO, Reddit announced a set of tools for businesses that want to be more active on the platform — including the ability to see which subreddits are mentioning a brand. For businesses, Reddit says it’s a way to “establish and grow a meaningful organic presence on Reddit.” In other words: the brands are coming.
That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, which says Reddit could shoot for a price range between $31 to $34 per share when launching its IPO. The $6.5 billion number is significantly lower than the more than $10 billion Reddit was valued at in 2021 following a round of funding.
