Monday, September 30, 2013

Welcome Dante, Brian, Kaela, Fish and David!

Wow, this is a big announcement for redditgifts and reddit!  redditgifts has gotten a new office and hired four new people and reddit has hired one.  Five new hires!  I think that's the biggest new hire announcement we've ever done.

Why the new hires you ask?  Well, redditgifts opened a marketplace last December and this year has shown that we are really onto something!  Also, it should come as no surprise that reddit has been growing as well and we've been making some pretty big enhancements to our advertising systems.  Over the next few months (and years), with the help of the new hires below, we're going to be able to make our marketplace, gift exchanges, and advertising a ton better!  We're excited!  Here is a bit from each new hire:

Dante Orpilla (/u/youngluck) - Designer, redditgifts
Hello, reddit. My name is Dante. I am originally from Oakland, California but for the better part of the last decade I have been in Los Angeles, where I paint, make loud noises with instruments, and now design for reddit. I've been a redditor for 4 years, half of which was on paper. I've never lurked. I have one account. I laugh obnoxiously loud, all the time. Sometimes I laugh at how obnoxiously loud I laugh. Every piece of clothing I own is covered in some kind of paint. I love my son. When people ask me what redditgifts is, I tell them it's a manufacturing company. We manufacture good will towards fellow human beings, and provide a platform for people to manufacture more. People we have never met, and probably never will. In this day and age a company built on that foundation is a rarity and I am profoundly grateful to be a part of it. To check out the messes I make, you can follow me at /r/youngluck. Be good to each other.

Brian Holt (/u/aquilaFiera) - Front End Developer, redditgifts
Hey reddit. I'm a Montana native that's been in Salt Lake City for quite a few years and hope to be here for years to come. I've been a redditor for years but only been a non-lurker for a year or so. Definitely excited to be apart of the upcoming Secret Santa and working on the marketplace. Future duties include making redditgifts mobile-friendly, prettified and other /r/HailCorporate activities. When not appeasing the corporate overlords, I enjoy doing any number of outdoor activities in a spectacularly poor fashion and taking any excuse to get out in the beautiful Utah outdoors. My favorite subreddits include /r/mtb, /r/skiing, /r/running, /r/AnimalsBeingJerks, /r/SaltLakeCity, and /r/bearswithbeaks.

Kaela Worthen Gardner (/u/highshelfofsteam) - Marketing, redditgifts
Hello, reddit! I am a self-described grammar nerd and have spent most of my career thus far working as a writer and editor in the magazine industry. I gradually started doing more and more on the marketing side there and found I enjoyed it a lot, and now I'm privileged to be doing full-time marketing for a site I love and promoting the thousands of cool and unique products in the redditgifts marketplace. I originally got my start redditing sitting on the couch beside my husband, and we still enjoy turning the links purple together and sharing our favorite reddit finds with each other. When I'm not really hard at work, I like to spend my time discovering the world through documentaries, books, cooking, travel when possible, and, of course, the wonderful world of the internet. Some of my favorite subreddits are /r/nottheonion, /r/abandonedporn, and /r/writingprompts.

Eric Fish (/u/mrefish) - Back End Developer, redditgifts
Hey reddit! My name is Eric, but here at reddit they call me Fish. I graduated from the University of Utah with a B.S. in Computer Science. I will be doing back end development for redditgifts predominantly in Python. In my free time I like to learn about microcontrollers, all things open source, cars, and the liquid content of craft beer bottles. Some of my favorite subreddits are /r/HistoryPorn, /r/Python (and most python related subreddits) and /r/linux.

David Ehrmann (/u/dehrmann) - Self-serve Advertising Engineer, reddit
Greetings from San Francisco! After all those times walking by reddit's office, it's hard to believe I'm actually here.  I've been a redditor (under a few accounts) for over six years, and while I've had a few reddit-related adventures, this is probably the craziest. I'm here to work on reddit's self-serve ad platform (those sponsored links you see at the top of the page). It's a cool promotional tool with some pretty unique uses, and I'm excited to see what we can do with it. I've been a software engineer in the valley for seven years, working on a lot of different things—drivers, databases, mobile apps, consumer-facing websites—but a large chunk has been advertising-driven. My life outside reddit’s a bit like /r/random. I (attempt to) play the guitar, work on random tech projects, have done some nifty DIY projects like glassblowing and metal casting, skydived, golfed, surfed, flown an airplane…and enjoyed it all! Aside from /r/random, not surprisingly, I enjoy /r/programming, have to give a shout-out to /r/engineering, am always amazed with what I find in /r/adporn, and never know what I’ll learn next from /r/lifeprotips.

As always, ask us anything in the comments. And of course, thank you for not using Adblock!

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Join Us & Each Other for the 2nd Annual Global reddit Service Day on October 5th.


/r/Seattle GrSD 2012
Global reddit Service Day is coming up next Saturday, October 5th. It's a day where people gather and do volunteer or service activity in their local communities (and then, usually, go drink). It's a great way to meet some new folks and give back to your local community.

Local subreddits have already planned a variety of different events. For example, Birmingham, AL is getting together to help clean up a local nature preserve, Orlando is volunteering at a local Ronald McDonald House to help families of sick children, and Washington, DC is helping a local food bank.

We've compiled a list of all the local subreddits that are planning an event or at least discussing it. Check the list below and see what is going on in your area. If your local subreddit isn't listed, post a link to your GrSD thread in the comments and we'll update the post to include it. Also, if there's a better GrSD link for your local subreddit, please pm me and I'll update.

Thanks to all the mods and users who have been organizing events. Make sure to take photos and post them back to your local subreddit!

219 (NW Indiana)
Asheville
Atlanta
Auckland
Austin
Bangalore
Birmingham, AL
Bowling Green State Univ.
British Columbia
Chicago
Cincinnati
Clarksville, TN
Columbus, OH
Eagle Rock, CA
Fort Collins, CO
Gainesville
Hawaii
Hungary
Indianapolis
Johnstown, PA
London
Los Angeles
Macquarie Univ.
Maine
Malmö
Mexico City
Missoula
Montreal
NYC
Olympia
Orange County, CA
Orlando
Panama City, FL
Paris
Penn State Univ.
Phoenix
Portland, OR
Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill (NC)
Richmond, VA
Rochester
Sacramento
Sam Houston State Univ.
San Antonio
San Diego
San Jose
San Marcos, TX
Sarasota
Seattle
Sydney
Syracuse
Tampa
Texas State University
Towson
Tucson
UC Davis
Univ of Ill, Urbana-Champaign
Virginia Tech Univ.
Washington, DC
Western Kentucky Univ.
Winnipeg
Winston-Salem

You can find a complete list of local subreddits from around the world HERE.




Friday, September 20, 2013

¿Sabías que el 11% de la población hispana/latina en EE.UU. son redditors?

Snoo Charro gracias a /u/Crimson88 de /r/mexico
A partir del 15 de septiembre al 15 de octubre, en Estados Unidos se celebra el mes de la herencia hispana. Por eso se nos ocurrió que sería la oportunidad perfecta para escribir sobre nuestra comunidad hispana/latina en reddit. Si aún no te habías dado cuenta, hace varios meses estamos escribiendo todos los tweets oficiales de reddit en español. Porque… ¿por qué no?

Bien tengas raíces hispanas, latinas, argentinas, mexicanas, boricuas, chapines, guanacas, chilenas, paraguayas, hables español, inglés o seas bilingüe y vivas en los Estados Unidos, todos formamos parte de la gran mayoría de los grupos minoritarios de este país. Eso significa que el 17% de la población, o sea 53 millones de nosotros, somos de origen hispano/latino según fue confirmado por el censo de los Estados Unidos. Para darte una perspectiva concreta, eso sería la población entera de Colombia y Nicaragua combinadas!

Por si no sabías en Hispanoamérica, que consiste parte del norte, centro y sur America, tiene un total de 390 millones de personas y si incluimos la población española, la cual forma parte de la cultura hispana del mundo, el total seria de 437 millones de personas. ¡Ahí no más para que te des una idea!

En Estados Unidos y en el mundo hay diferentes opiniones de lo que realmente constituye la población hispana o latina. Pero dejemos ese tema para otro momento.

Hablando de nuestra comunidad en reddit, acaba de salir un estudio muy interesante que hizo el Pew Research Center que dice que el 11% de todas las personas de origen hispano en Estados Unidos que están en Internet son redditors. Esto significa que estadísticamente hay un mayor porcentaje de hispanos en línea que son redditors en comparación a la población de redditors que no son hispanos. ¡Muy Interesante! 

Aquí está la lista a nivel mundial de los países hispanos de los cuales hemos recibido tráfico basándonos en el mes pasado (Agosto de 2013. Fuente: Google Analytics):

#22: España - 1.1 millón de páginas que fueron vistas en España (/r/es; /r/spain)
#25: México- 1 millón de páginas que fueron vistas en México (/r/mexico)
#41: Argentina- 500,000 páginas que fueron vistas en Argentina (/r/argentina)

Y una última estadística: el 17% del equipo de reddit es hispano/latino. ¡Awww siiiiii!

Consejos para hispanos/latinos leyendo reddit en español:
Desconectado: Visita http://es.reddit.com/ donde puedes ver el interfaz de reddit en español.
Conectado: dentro de preferencias de su cuenta, puede cambiar el idioma de la interfaz al español.

Imagínate que hace tres años problemas como este existían… ¡hemos avanzado bastante!

Al final de la página puedes ver la lista de los subreddits que pudimos encontrar dentro de la comunidad reddit. Algunos de estos subreddits necesitan un poco de vida, así que por favor no dudes en empezar a enviar un enlace o post de texto, incluso si no hay mucho contenido. Ahora solo te queda navegar, disfrutar y encontrar lo que te guste dentro de reddit.

¡Eso, eso, eso, eso!!


pic de /u/winry en /r/panama

If you haven’t noticed, several months ago we started writing all official reddit tweets in Spanish. Because ... why not? So here's a bit more background on where we were coming from and why this matters to us.

In the United States, Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated from September 15 to October 15. So we thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to write about our Hispanic/Latino community on reddit!

If you live in the US and have Hispanic/Latino roots— whether they are Argentinian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Paraguayan, Chilean; if you speak Spanish, English or
are bilingual; you form part of the largest racial minority group in this country. That means that 17% of the population, or 53 million of us, are of Hispanic/Latino origin as confirmed by the United States Census Bureau. To give you a better idea, that would be the entire population of Colombia and Nicaragua combined!

In Hispano America — consisting of portions of North, Central and South America — there are around 390 million people. When you throw in the Spanish population as part of the worldwide Hispanic culture, it brings the total up to 437 million people who speak Spanish as their primary language. That is a pretty huge voice!

There are differing opinions in the U.S. and in the rest of the world of what actually constitutes the Hispanic or Latino community. But let's leave that topic for another time.

Recently ​​the first-of-its-kind reddit study earlier this summer by the Pew Research Center reported that 11% of all Hispanics who are online in the United States are redditors. This means that, statistically, there’s a significantly larger percentage of Hispanics online who are redditors compared to the population of non-Hispanic redditors. 

Here are the top Hispanic countries on reddit and their page views in Aug. '13 (Source: Google Analytics):

#22: Spain - 1.1 million page views came from Spain (/r/es; /r/spain)
#25: Mexico- 1 million page views came from Mexico (/r/mexico)
#41: Argentina- 500,000 page views came from Argentina (/r/argentina)

Oh and one more statistic: 17% of the reddit staff is Hispanic/Latino. ¡Awww siiiiii!

Tips for Hispanics reading reddit in Spanish:
Logged out: visit http://es.reddit.com
Logged in: within your account preferences, you can change the interface language to Spanish.

And to think, just 3 years ago there were problems like this...

Here is a list of some of the subreddits I have found within the reddit community. Some of these subreddits need a little loving, so please feel free to start submitting even if there is not much content there already! You just have to browse, explore and find what you like in reddit.


Top subreddits for users browsing in Spanish (according to google analytics) with no particular order:
/r/leagueoflegends
/r/starcraft
/r/videos
/r/LeagueOfGiving
/r/NoSleep
/r/vita
/r/bitcoin
/r/aww

Subreddits of the Hispanic countries:
/r/es
/r/latinoamerica
/r/argentina]
/r/bolivia
/r/chile
/r/colombia
/r/costarica
/r/cuba
/r/dominicans
/r/dominican
/r/ecuador
/r/elsalvador
/r/guatemala
/r/honduras
/r/mexico
/r/nicaragua
/r/panama
/r/paraguay
/r/peru
/r/puertorico
/r/uruguay
/r/venezuela

Subreddits of Argentina:
/r/Argaming
/r/ArgenPics
/r/argentinacirclejerk
/r/argentinacringe
/r/ArgENTos]
/r/buenosaires
/r/buenosairesbici
/r/chachacha
/r/Cordoba
/r/Corrientes
/r/DimensionArgentina
/r/empleos_AR
/r/fceyn
/r/LGBT_de_Argentina
/r/LinuxArgentina
/r/Mendoza
/r/MusicaArgentina
/r/River_Plate
/r/Rosario


Subreddit of Chile:
/r/Santiago


Subreddits of Ecuador:
/r/cuenca
/r/Guayaquil
/r/Quito
/r/ligadequito

Subreddits of Espana:
/r/Madrid
/r/Cataluna
/r/15M
/r/barca
/r/realmadrid
/r/laliga

Subreddits of Mexico:
/r/Animalesdeconsejo
/r/Ateos Mexicanos
/r/Cinéfilos
/r/DFMeshnet
/r/EZLN
/r/FutbolMX
/r/Libros
/r/Mesoamérica
/r/MexicoCircleJerk
/r/MéxicoIAMA
/r/MexicoDrugWar
/r/MeMexico
/r/MexiJobs
/r/Minecraft México
/r/Náhuatl
/r/NerdsMexico
/r/Poetas
/r/Tacos
/r/TVAdicto
/r/Videojuego

Subreddits of states and cities in México:
/r/Aguascalientes
/r/BajaCalifornia
/r/Distrito Federal
/r/EdoMex
/r/Ensenada
/r/Guadalajara
/r/Guanajuato
/r/La Laguna
/r/Mexicali
/r/Monterrey
/r/Oaxaca
/r/Playa del Carmen
/r/Querétaro
/r/Sinaloa
/r/Sonora
/r/Tijuana
/r/Veracruz
/r/Zacatecas

Subreddits of Peru:
/r/arteperuano
/r/perutrip

Subreddits of Puerto Rico:
/r/SanJuan
/r/Vieques
/r/PuertoRicoTravel
/r/PuertoRicoFood

Subreddit of Uruguay:
/r/UruguaySoccer

Subreddits of Venezuala:
/r/Vinotinto
/r/vencirclejerk

Music:
/r/musica
/r/bachata
/r/salsa
/r/mambo
/r/merengue
/r/reggaeton
/r/rockenespanol
/r/tango

Other Spanish subreddits:
/r/espanol
/r/futbol
/r/musicaenespanol
/r/spanglish
/r/LatinoAmerica
/r/LatinAmerica
/r/latino
/r/programacion
/r/redditores
/r/Chicanos
/r/hispanos

And to finish here’s a Multireddit of the Latin America subreddits created by /u/multi-mod. 

Que Onda GUERO!!! 

Friday, September 13, 2013

Off the Beaten Path: Smaller subreddits Worth a Visit

Every day reddit powers thousands of active communities. Yesterday there were 5,900 subreddits that received more than 5 posts or comments and tens of thousands that received at least one post or comment.  Most subreddits are small and usually pretty quiet. We all love the large, busy subreddits, but make sure you venture out of the crowds and explore some of reddit's small towns. Here are just a few of the amazing, weird, and charming smaller subreddits.





Subreddits under 5,000 subscribers
/r/AntiAntiJokes: Tired of jokes that are funny in the traditional sense? AntiAntiJokes is probably the place for you.
/r/BritPics: A subreddit chock full of interesting pictures related to the UK.
/r/Good_Cop_Free_Donut: A subreddit dedicated to showcasing the good things that police officers do.
/r/EditingAndLayout: A subreddit dedicated to extremely high quality and remastered gifs.
/r/SkyDiving: A subreddit for those fine folks who are interested in skydiving and B.A.S.E. jumping.
/r/DoomMetal: Need a little doom and gloom in your life? This subreddit is sure to satisfy your needs :)
/r/ExamplesOfGood: A subreddit for cross-posting examples of good that happen on reddit.
/r/DogsWithEyebrows: "Is your dog giving you a look of disapproval? Is your dog pouting or even depressed? How will you ever know without Eyebrows™ Now available on your nearest pet."

Subreddits under 3,000 subscribers
/r/imaginarycityscapes: A subreddit full of fanciful artwork depicting cityscapes.
/r/NoNoNoNoYES: A subreddit for close calls that make you uncomfortably aware of your own mortality.
/r/Stretched: A place to discuss, share pictures, and learn about gauge piercings.
/r/MysteriesOftheWorld: "A subreddit for all the bizarre mysteries and strange things you come across."
/r/SurrealGifs: http://i.imgur.com/AbK4G0n.gif 
/r/Stance: "A subreddit dedicated to all things low (rider)! Share your ride, critique others, set up meets, or just simply ask for help/input on anything!"
/r/TheFutureIsNow: A place to talk about technology that is currently in commercial use that sci-fi writers of the past could only dream of.
/r/RnB: A subreddit for all of your R&B needs.
/r/HardcoreAww: A place for adorable big animals and their offspring that would eat you if they had the chance.
/r/PimpCats: Got cats? Got cash? Post pictures of your pimp-ass cat rollin' in that dough.


Subreddits under 1,000 subscribers

/r/LifeInaPost: Share your life story in a single post with other redditors!
/r/GuiltyPleasureMusic: A place where you can listen to your favorite music without the judging glares of your peers.
/r/NotFoolingAnybody: "A place to post pictures of former chain businesses that have been converted to other uses, yet still strongly resemble their former use."
/r/CommentOfTheDay: A subreddit for highlighting and discussing entertaining comments around reddit.
/r/badAnimation: So many wonderful, hilariously bad animated shorts/movies/reels.
/r/CareerGuidance: A subreddit where you can give and get advice about your next career move.
/r/Schland: "A subreddit for everything that is awesome about Germany."
/r/NightShift: Stuck working the night shift? From Australia or Europe? Insomniac? This is the subreddit for you!
/r/KidSafeVideos: A compilation of videos safe for kids aged 7 and up.

pic by /u/NOACeulemans, from /r/VillagePorn
Subreddits created in the last 8 days
/r/MultiWall: A subreddit full of awesome dual-monitor wallpapers.
/r/SaveTheNBN: A subreddit about the national wholesale-only, open-access data network under development in Australia.
/r/CaptionNeeded: "   "
/r/EAF: Epic as fuck.
/r/DoSomethingAwesome: Have you done something awesome recently? Share your achievements here!
/r/literatures: "A multilingual community for deeper discussions of plays, poetry, short stories, and novels in languages other than English, or English in translation."
/r/BadGovNoFreedom: A subreddit where you can share and discuss stories about governments "stomping on our rights."
/r/UraniumGoneWild: Hey bb u wanna see my isotopes?
/r/vexillologytechnology: Flags... and stuff.
/r/RoombAww: Seriously, just go there now. Do it. You can thank us later.

This journey was made possible by /r/ObscureSubreddits/r/StrangeSubreddits, /r/Newreddits, and the Glorious Button of Random.

*reddit map by /u/LaurelQuade

Here's a Multireddit of all the subreddits mentioned.

Friday, September 06, 2013

A Few More Gold Benefits


It’s been a few months since we launched our first set of expanded gold benefits. Since then we’ve been able to sign on a few more companies, so we thought we’d announce those as well as answer some common questions about the gold benefits program. Here are the new merchants who have signed on since June:
  • Our own redditgifts marketplace - giving out 5 free t-shirts a week and Elves 3-month memberships
  • Bart’s Bakery - really good cookies. 20% off anything you buy from them.
  • Betabrand - unique stylish clothes. 20% off anything. Maybe you saw my picture.
  • iFixit - guides, parts, and tools for repairing… anything. $20 off purchases of $50 or more.
  • Outgrow.me - buy successfully crowdfunded items. 15% off anything.
  • Rover - background-checked dogsitting service by dog lovers. $50 credit.
  • SOL Republic - HD headphones. 20% off purchases of $99 or more. Also giving out one free pair of headphones every month.
  • Uber - private car service in many cities. $25 off your first ride.
For a full list, check out the page here: http://www.reddit.com/gold/partners

How do gold partners work? How do you select them?

We try to find merchants whose products we can test and personally recommend.  For every merchant featured here, there is at least one reddit employee (usually multiple) who feels the product offered by that merchant is really great and worth recommending to fellow redditors. In some cases we looked specifically for brands that redditors already know and appreciate, like Bart’s Bakery and iFixit, both of whom have done popular AMAs in the past.

No money changing hands

These aren’t advertisements for these merchants. They don’t pay us. They are extending promotional prices to redditors, and we don’t receive any of it. What we want is for every bit of the discount they’re willing to offer to go directly to redditors, so you’ll want to continue buying reddit gold.

You benefit most when it’s a merchant you’re already thinking about buying something from: most of the discounts are in the $20 or more range, so buying a month’s worth of reddit gold ($3.99, or less if you buy in bulk) should save you a ton of money.

Yes, it’s marketing, but it’s not how you think

Being one of our gold merchants helps to market these companies' products, right? Yes! But that’s not the whole story.

The best companies (we feel) are ones who make a good product and follow that up with great customer service. Nothing goes absolutely perfectly all the time, and you want to know that if you buy something the person who sold it to you will back it up. Thus, we have reddit discussion threads for every merchant and every gold feature in /r/goldbenefits - and we tell every gold merchant when they agree to sign on that they are expected to have someone who can solve problems and answer questions monitoring that subreddit and resolving issues post-haste. It’s customer service in public.

Good customer service shows you actually care about the people buying your products. But as it’s often a quiet thing, it’s hard to tell which companies do it well until you’ve bought something first, or heard via word-of-mouth - and that can be a slow process. What /r/goldbenefits does is provide a place for companies who really care about doing things right to demonstrate it to redditors.

The best companies often just focus steadily on making a good product and ensuring their customers are happy. With gold benefits, our goal is to help make it a little easier for you to find them.

Global reddit Service Day - October 5th, 2013

/r/UBC
The 2nd Annual Global reddit Service Day* (GrSD) will take place on Saturday October 5th, 2013. 

Help clean up a beach, host a fundraiser concert, build a playground, donate some blood, or...???

Global reddit Service Day is the perfect excuse to join up and meet new friends, do something fun, and give back. Beer tastes even better after doing something amazing for others. Last year redditors across the world gathered to help clean up parks and trails, plant flowers, volunteer at charity events, build houses, organize food drives, work at animal shelters, and much more.

/r/clarksville
All you have to do to participate is go to your local (or university) subreddit. Then just join in the thread about Global reddit Service Day [GrSD] (or start a thread) and help organize some group volunteer activities in your realm. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate. Last year a few groups just went and donated at a blood drive together. Another group in Japan picked up trash at local beach and then went snorkeling.

Just pick something, make it happen, and have fun. If there's a parade/holiday/dome in your town on the 5th, just pick another date in October that works for y'all.

Find your local subreddits here

Find your college subreddit here


We have something special planned to highlight the subreddits that go above and beyond, so even if you are a small group, please document your event by taking photos, videos, telling stories and sharing them on your local subreddit. Everyone who participates in GrSD 2013 will get a special trophy, and more importantly the satisfaction of giving back to your awesome community, town, city, hamlet, school, commonwealth, protectorate, realm, etc. See you on the 5th.

*Last year we called the event "reddit Dedicated Day of Service (rDDoS)", but we found that no matter how good the context is, sys admins (including those at reddit) have a negative and visceral reaction to any acronym containing "DDoS".

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

I'm putting the reddit alien on a bus and doing a 150 stop, 77 college, 5 month long tour for internet entrepreneurship (let's hang out)

Huzzah - my login still works!

reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian here with a very big announcement I wanted to share with all you first.

(not to scale)
I'm about to embark on an epic 100 stop, 65 college, 150 stop, 77 college, 5 month long tour promoting internet entrepreneurship. Sure, it’s technically for my book, Without Their Permission, which is both a blueprint and a rallying cry for the open internet and entrepreneurship, but what I want to promote is how our generation has a tremendous opportunity to do amazing things online. We're all still figuring out just what kind of an impact the internet will have on the world -- let's be the ones doing it.

This isn’t just my story, it’s the stories of your successful alums as well as current students, all learning from and contributing to the greatest platform for ideas the world has ever seen (the internet). All told, the student bodies of all the schools I’m visiting is just shy of 1,000,000! I told you it’s going to be epic.

Let's hang out IRL, high-5, and I'll doodle you a reddit alien while you alternate between asking me anything and telling me about your favorite subreddit.

About this epic tour

This tour is going to be the exact opposite of every book tour so far; as in, it’s going to be amazing.

The week before each college visit, I’ll jump on the college’s subreddit to source what you want me to discuss in my keynote the following week at your campus. I’ll talk about anything you upvote most—seriously—and take your questions on stage for an AMA IRL. After that, because author readings are silly (if you wanna hear me read my own book just listen to the audiobook) I'm bringing back an alum of your school so I can interview him or her about all the awesome stuff s/he's done online since graduating. I want these events to be everything Steve and I wish we had as undergrads at UVA(wahoowa).

Finally, to keep with the this-ain't-no-conventional-book-tour-mentality, we’re going to have a book signing/networking combo after each event so everyone can put their newfound enthusiasm towards planning their foray into entrepreneurship, not standing in a long line.

Afterwards, we’ll head to a meetup organized by the college subreddit at a local watering hole.

Why a massive tour spreading the goodness of entrepreneurship?

Back in 2005, Steve and I ended up visiting Cambridge during our senior year Spring Break to hear Paul Graham give a talk called "How To Start a Startup." This talk set Steve and I on the course that led to Y Combinator and thus reddit. I’m proud to announce that Y Combinator is backing this tour, so it’s kinda coming full circle.

I hope this tour will be more than an awesome excuse to rent a bus for five months—may it inspire and guide a new generation of internet entrepreneurs. And I'm not talking about just starting the next reddit (or some other tech startup); the internet has the potential to re-invent so many industries begging for innovation.


Even if you're a history major like me, there's no excuse. The more people we can get learning and creating online, the better ideas we'll have in the world. And I just want better stuff: better companies, better art, better comedy, better music, better nonprofits, better activism, better everything.

There are amazing projects going on right now nationwide that I’ll use this tour to spotlight. We are a generation that hasn't been given much to work with, yet I'm so inspired by people I meet, whether on our heartland bus tour last fall, in Brooklyn where I live, or everyday throughout the vast communities here on reddit.

In fact, reddit has offered free sponsored headlines to support the following types of awesome projects at your university:
  • Awesome kickstarter campaign
  • Amazing etsy store
  • Astounding animated .gif collection
  • Tell us now! Email colleges@reddit.com

How you can help

We’re making a ton of progress, but we haven’t confirmed all 65 colleges yet and I’d love your help. Take a look below, and if you can help in any way (like you know an administrator, professor, or student group who wants to make your college event happen—or if you’re a staff or faculty member who wants to help) please don’t hesitate to email me and my team epicbooktour@alexisohanian.com.

If we aren’t speaking at your school, I’m sorry. Perhaps you can convince us (we’re all ears), but really it’s a matter of timing, logistics, and the laws of physics.

We’re also still looking for alums to bring back for the fireside chat at a number of universities, so if you’d like to nominate someone (or yourself) please fill out this form.

I can’t wait to upvote you

I’m excited. Even more excited than when I see an orangered at the top of my screen. I always lovemeeting redditors all over the world; if it weren't for you, reddit would still just be me and Steve submitting links with each other, so there’d definitely be no book, and thus no tour—and I would have no use for this t-shirt cannon. Steve would've gone on to be another programmer in suburban Virginia and I'd probably be an immigration lawyer.

Thank you for that. I hope I can show you just how much I appreciate you all and take every single one of you out for waffles.

TOUR SCHEDULE HERE

PS If/when you've pre-ordered my book, please fwd the receipt to me thankyou@alexisohanian.comso I can thank you properly.

PPS Yes, /r/redskins, I've worked it out so I can fly back for every home game—except for the Chargers, because of a wedding. So it goes.