for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit, May 6-8 in Palm Springs.
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian still believes in empathy on the web.
“I’m spoiled because every day I see it on Reddit,” he said on the Digiday Podcast from Cannes, France. “There’s all this remarkable decency and kindness for people.”
Some edited highlights:
People aren’t perfect
“There are scruffy areas of people. People are scruffy. Everyone accepts. Nobody is expecting perfection, but expecting authenticity is reasonable. This conversation has always happened. You couldn’t see the message in real time and affect it.”
Reddit is an editorial tool
“We want to generate a flywheel of engagement. My favorite example is a New York Times story on prison reform. This reporter wrote the story, then got involved in the discussion on Reddit, then wrote another story for the Times about the conversation he had. We’re not just sending these media sites traffic. We’re helping them come up with new stories.”
People were always segmented
“There were a lot of voices I’d never heard before because of where I lived and what I was exposed to. I was never privy to those conversations. Now that they’re online, they can find each other, and we can find it.”
More in Media
Forbes creates wine vertical, commerce shop and membership business as AI squeezes traffic
Forbes is launching a wine-focused vertical, commerce site and membership program to grow consumer revenue and offset declining traffic.
Digiday+ Research: Publishers favor generative AI over predictive AI
Publishers have worked to find the right fit for AI tools, and found that generative AI lends itself better to journalism than predictive AI.
MrBeast is so big, Beast Industries turns down eight-figure brand deals if they aren’t the right fit
Beast Industries CEO Jeff Housenbold tells Digiday how the company is expanding and growing the monolith that is MrBeast.