Reddit As An Attention Economy

This was also posted on my Newsvine column, but they're still in beta so you can't see it there right now.

I'd like to talk about how reddit behaves as an attention economy.

I was surprised to find that there is no Wikipedia article on "attention economy", but I'll define it as this: A system in which the service of spreading ideas, and generating interest in them, is treated as a currency. Attention economies have existed for a long time as components of larger economic systems, but advancements in information technology have made it possible for more people than ever before to be on the supply side of the equation.

Reddit is one of a new crop of social news sites. It was founded in the summer of 2005 by two graduates of the University of Virginia. It received funding from Y Combinator and has been associated with programmer and author Paul Graham. Originally it was written in a dialect of Lisp, but late in 2005 it was rewritten in Python. The flavor of the reddit community has been influenced by these beginnings: a number of regular users are programmers and Lisp afficionados.

Reddit works as an attention economy in the following way: it allows registered users (also called redditors), who pay no fee for membership in the community, to post any URL they wish with any headline they choose. These posts first go into the newest submissions section of the site. They are listed here by order of submission, with the 25 most recent posts listed by default. Registered users, when logged in, can set the number of posts they see on a single page. There are navigation links to move through the rankings in each section.

Each post is given a score. The score is listed along with the poster-supplied headline of the post which links to the provided URL, the internet domain name associated with the URL, the login ID of the user who submitted it and the relative time of posting rounded to minutes, hours or days. Next to each post is also an up arrow and a down arrow associated with that post. When a registered user is logged in, and they click on one of these arrows, they give the post a vote. Clicking the up arrow gives a positive vote, called a "like", and clicking the down arrow gives a negative vote called a "dislike". The base value of each post's score is 0. However, when a post is submitted, the user who submitted it automatically gives it a "like" vote.

Not all "like" and "dislike" votes have the same value. When users give a post a positive score (more "like" than "dislike" the post), it increases a value associated with the user who submitted that post. This value is called karma, which may be in homage to Slashdot, one of the first major news discussion sites on the web. The value of a vote is based on the karma score of the user who gives the vote - users with more karma have more influential votes.

However, the sum of the actual value of the votes given to a post is not displayed in the reddit interface. Only the sum of the positive and negative votes is shown. This sum is used to determine the post's effect on the poster's karma, but not its ranking in the most important reddit section - the "hot" section.

The "hot" section serves as the front page for reddit, and unregistered visitors to the site will first see the posts which are ranked in the top 25 of that section. But the total value of a post's votes is only one part of the calculation used to determine what posts will end up in this coveted position. The other factor is the freshness value of the post, which is determined by how recently it was submitted. There may be other factors involved, but these two are the most obvious.

So as a result of this design, a typical reddit post follows this life cycle:

1. Submitted
   
2. Posted in new submissions section
   
3. Given positive and/or negative votes ("likes" and "dislikes")
   
4. Value of the post's votes reaches a certain threshold while it still retains its freshness - post ends up in the hot section, OR
   
5. Post's ranking in the new submissions section falls as more posts are submitted, and its value does not reach the required threshold while it is still fresh. Post is forgotten and neglected, though still retained in the reddit database.
   

There is a third section entitled top all-time which lists posts ranked solely by their value, with no consideration for freshness. A post might slowly but surely end up in this section even if it loses its chance at hotness. But this is unlikely as most posts do not garner enough attention, and therefore votes, to reach this point after dropping off the top rankings in the new submissions section without making it to the hot section.

In this way, the chance of a post reaching the hot section depends on the usage patterns of reddit users. The most influential redditors are those who:

• Frequently visit the new submissions section
  
• Aggressively vote for or against posts, and possibly even
  
• Campaign for or against a post using established channels outside of the reddit system, such as:
  
  
  
  • Chat
    
  • Blogs
    
  • E-mail
    
  • Phone
    
  • Face to face
    
  
  

Posts which attract the attention of these influential redditors are the most likely to reach the hot section. Once they have made it into the upper rankings of the section, other less influential users will frequently attach themselves to the growth trend of a post and drive it higher in the rankings, so that it may approach or even reach the number one ranking, the most coveted of all prizes for the submitting redditor. The most successful redditors are listed in the stats section, which is - perhaps intentionally -- similar to the top scores section of a video game. In this way, reddit feeds on the same factors that motivate gamers to get a top score, which in turn are the things that drive many people to seek recognition and acclaim in various aspects of life.

One question which remains to be asked is, how does reddit plan to make money? Advertising is certainly the simplest and most proven way. If sufficient value is provided by the information contained in posted links combined with the ranking of those links by the community, then another possibility is paid registrations. However, this is not likely to work for the main reddit site since much of the value is dependent upon the openness of participation. But the creation of a not safe for work version of reddit opens up the possibility that customized versions of reddit could provide sufficient value for a particular niche of users to justify paid registration. At the very least this would allow for targeted advertising opportunities, or even co-branded or third-party-branded versions of reddit addressed to particular audiences.

In conclusion I would say that it seems inevitable that some version of this approach, implemented by reddit and/or others, will constitute a significant part of the future shape of news - and of online community.