In other acquisition news today,
Techcrunch reported that Condé
Nast, owner of Wired and other magazines/websites, has acquired Boston-based Reddit.
I pinged Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian about this and he confirmed to me that
they have been acquired, "for an undisclosed sum".
Reddit is another to have been extensively profiled by Read/WriteWeb. Back in July we noted that Reddit was integrating its software into Slate.com, the venerable Webzine currently owned by Washington Post. The reason was to give Slate readers "a new way to find and discuss its best content." I'm assuming Reddit will be similarly integrated into Wired.
Slate.reddit is populated automatically via Slate.com's RSS feeds - so there are no manual submissions, as on the original reddit.com. All that Slate readers need to do is vote and comment. Back in July I asked Alexis what led to the Slate deal:
"Alexis told me that "the relationship with Slate began when their articles started popping up on reddit shortly after we launched last June." That was followed by numerous other front page stories on reddit, at which point emails were exchanged between Reddit management and Slate."
At that time he told me there are some other similar white label projects in the works. Well looks like Wired has gone and bought the whole company, instead of just licensing the technology!
Also check out our Personalized News: A Market Overview post, which went into detail about Reddit's technology.
I've asked Alexis for more details about the Wired deal, so I'll update this post when he replies.
UPDATE: Co-founder Steve Huffman from Reddit told me:
"We will certainly be collaborating with wired, but we also be collaborating with the other CN properties such as style.com and other sites affiliated with the company's newspaper groups. We haven't worked out all of the specifics yet, however.
The first order of business will be getting a lay of the land and seeing what we can do for whom."
Also the official press release is now out, which has this quote from General Manager of Wired Digital Kourosh Karimkhany:
"Our goal will be to build Reddit as an independent company by collaborating with Wired through the integration of its core technology, and by offering partnerships to allow other companies to do the same."
The PR notes too that Reddit now has over one million unique users a month. Plus Wired’s parent company, Condé Nast, has already used Reddit technology to launch a beta site, Lipstick.com, for the social filtering of celebrity news.
Reddit‚Äôs technology will be used by Cond√© Nast to "unleash the power of the many communities touched by Cond√© Nast to enhance our Web sites by highlighting news that matters to them,‚Ä? said Sarah Chubb, President of Cond√©Net, the online division of Cond√© Nast.
Reddit, based in Boston, will relocate to San Francisco where Wired magazine and Wired Digital are based. The four founders will continue to direct Reddit as Wired Digital employees.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Wired Acquires Reddit (instead of just white labeling it).
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Conde Nast shows discipline in their online strategy with the Reddit acquisition and this will serve their brand and their loyal readers. Read More
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Great timing! Reddit will get even better with the support of Conde Nast. And Conde Nast closed the deal before the prices skyrocket, because this is a market to explode as I pointed out before. Good luck Alexis, good luck guys...
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | October 31, 2006 12:49 PMTo paraphase what I wrote in Personalized news, nothing personal: Many of these services skew relevance and impact content since people are ultimately directed to the few highly linked, popular and known items. The model defines the semantics for influenential as a self-fulfilling prophecy rather than as a revelation. The effect is to limit discussion and concentrate media control more and more in the hands of the few that control the wires.
Its interesting then, in this context, that a major publishing house whose bread-and-butter is "trends" would snap Reddit up... as to perhaps "oil" their self-fulfilling prophecy machine... another property to define what "in" is.. Reddit as "Volksempfanger" for the voice of Conde-Nast?
Edward C. Zimmermann
Posted by: Edward C. Zimmermann | November 1, 2006 4:51 AMNONMONOTONIC Lab of BSn
http://www.nonmonotonic.net