More than 1 in 20 (6%) American adults online use the online community Reddit, with the self-proclaimed ‘front page of the internet’ now on par with Tumblr in terms of user numbers, according to new data. The study from the Pew Center’s Internet and American Life project, found that Reddit skews towards young males. Around […]
More than 1 in 20 (6%) American adults online use the online community Reddit, with the self-proclaimed ‘front page of the internet’ now on par with Tumblr in terms of user numbers, according to new data.
The study from the Pew Center’s Internet and American Life project, found that Reddit skews towards young males. Around 15% of males ages 18 to 29 visit the site, compared to the 5% of the same age.
Overall, men are twice as likely as women to be Reddit users, Pew said, adding that those over 50 show little interest in the site.
The report also points out that urban and suburban residents more often sign onto Reddit than those living in rural areas.
The rise of Reddit
By comparison, the 6% of people who frequent the site put Reddit at par with with Tumblr as compared to Twitter which is used by 1 6% of American adults online and 67% of those who use Facebook. Pinterest, and Instagram are each used by around 15% of all US web users.
Founded back in 2005, Reddit has become a popular destination for people to share anything from amusing memes to political activism. The site is often pivotal in the spread of popular memes, like Ridiculously Photogenic Guy, Overly Attached Girlfriend, and Sudden Clarity Clarence.
The increase in number of people using the site indicate towards the rise in awareness about Reddit which was founded in 2005 by Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman and sold to Conde Nast in 2006.
The site has overtaken rival Digg in recent years, and works by letting users self-moderate content by submitting links and vote them up or down based on their quality, novelty or general ability to generate interest.
Reddit reported 71 million unique visitors in May and said it was on track to hit 5 billion page views this year. Last year, the site reported about 2 billion page views for the year and 34 million unique views in a month.
Reddit has also gained popularity with its “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) sessions, which allow people to get digitally up close and personal with famous people.
President Barack Obama actually broke the site in late August with his own AMA. The US President drove such heavy traffic to the page that Reddit crashed more than a few times during the 40-minute AMA.
In an effort to keep up with Reddit’s growth, the site recently introduced multireddits — a sort of offshoot of the popular subreddit feature, allowing users the power to create their own public Reddit front pages.
View the full report here
