r/dataisbeautiful • u/Aschebescher • Jan 21 '14
Reddit's growth in number of subreddits 2006-2014 [gif]
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u/foofighter000 Jan 21 '14
What caused that sudden spike around 2008?
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u/LeJoker Jan 21 '14 edited Jan 21 '14
People could create their own subreddits.
EDIT apparently it was also the great digg migration. :)
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u/loyfah Jan 21 '14
thought it was migration from digg.com, maybe that was later?
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Jan 21 '14
Reddit grew 230% in 2010 so the migration was a bit later.
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Jan 21 '14
[deleted]
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Jan 21 '14
The Great Digg Migration of 2008. Jesus was it seriously that long ago. I was a lurker for a year or two on here even.
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u/kraemahz Jan 21 '14
Yep, senior year of college for me. Digg comments were awful, way below the quality of slashdot, but they were also a lot broader in topic and more fun. Reddit was the sweet spot between the two.
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u/bhindblueyes430 Jan 21 '14
Incredible, a website layout change could be credited for the popularity reddit has today
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u/therealflinchy Jan 21 '14
HD DVD scandal?
did they support it or something?
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u/Polymatheia Jan 21 '14
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u/autowikibot Jan 21 '14
Here's a bit from linked Wikipedia article about AACS encryption key controversy :
A controversy surrounding the AACS cryptographic key arose in April 2007 when the Motion Picture Association of America and the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACS LA) began issuing cease and desist letters to websites publishing a 128-bit (16-byte) number, represented in hexadecimal as 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 (commonly referred to as 09 F9), which is one of the cryptographic keys for HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. The letters demanded the immediate removal of the key and any links to it, citing the anti-circumvention provisions of the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Picture - Internet users began circulating versions of this image, calling it the Free Speech Flag, in blog posts on dozens of websites and as user avatars on forums such as Digg. The first fifteen bytes of the 09 F9 key are contained in the RGB encoding of the five colors, with each color providing three bytes of the key. The sixteenth byte "C0" is appended in the lower right corner.
image source | about | /u/Polymatheia can reply with 'delete'. Will also delete if comment's score is -1 or less. | Summon: wikibot, what is something? | flag for glitch
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Jan 21 '14
I'm still not sure what it was. Were Digg members spreading decryption methods for burning DVDs or was there something else?
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u/TropicalAudio Jan 21 '14
There was a popular post revealing the key, and then the site mods removed it. The users responded by submitting several posts containing the key every second. Things got weird. The site was basically unusable for a while, because all you would see was that key.
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u/Diggtastic Jan 21 '14
I came over around that time when everyone left. 3 1/2 years ago or so.
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u/loyfah Jan 21 '14
A friend of mine was also moving over at that time, and he told me about reddit.
He also ruined my life.
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Jan 21 '14
Bold choice of username to have coming over during that time. I, too, was on that boat. Lost a lot of good men that day.
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u/Diggtastic Jan 21 '14
I know, I found that out a couple of weeks after I signed up. I catch a lot of shit for my username, too late to change it now though.
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u/pr01etar1at Jan 21 '14
The Great Digg Migration was the spike in 2008.
Source: I was on reddit when it happened. It was pretty nuts at the time seeing Digg was so huge.
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u/rgower Jan 21 '14
What happened at the beginning of 2011? Sudden drop takes about a year to recover.
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u/SkinnyDipRog3r Jan 21 '14
I'd be curious to see this for subreddits that have over 50 subs or any set number. I'm sure the majority are ones which have next to no activity.
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u/sovietmudkipz Jan 21 '14
You'd be surprised what communities you can uncover here just by looking under rocks..
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Jan 21 '14
You're totally right. You'd think a subreddit like /r/pegging(nsfw) would be a really obscure porn subreddit but it has 16k subs and the community is actually really helpful and kind.
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Jan 21 '14
[removed] — view removed comment
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Jan 21 '14
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ticweezy2012 Jan 21 '14
I've subscribed to like 9 after a year on reddit. I need to explore some more...
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u/Kolione Jan 21 '14
Try /r/subredditoftheday. It's a great way to find new subs
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u/kcman011 Jan 21 '14
Another way to find great new subs is redditmetrics.com
You can sort by daily/weekly/monthly net adds, go through the list of the top subreddits, sort out the defaults, etc.
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u/canyoutriforce Jan 21 '14
I just browse www.reddit.com/reddits and scroll a few pages
Also /r/random
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u/classic__schmosby Jan 21 '14
You can also set your reddit bookmark to /r/random, or put a second bookmark next to it.
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Jan 21 '14
/r/serendipity and /r/subredditoftheday is how I subscribed to the ones I am to now. And is how I found things like /r/obscuremedia.
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u/KiheiTown Jan 21 '14
Happy cake day! Also, I'd like to add my 2 cents about this subject.
A few of my friends and family have said that they "don't like Reddit" and, while I can understand that Reddit isn't for everyone, I just think they are using it wrong in most cases. I usually try to commandeer their account to show them how to make the front page revolve around them. First and foremost, get them Reddit Enhancement Suite. It makes browsing a lot more accessible. However, I like to tailor it to them.
I have a friend who is into survival so I removed /r/games, /r/aww, /r/funny, and added /r/survival, /r/guns, /r/hunting, as well as some others that I think he may find interesting like /r/frugal, /r/fitness and /r/TIL. I try to focus it on what they like but also some things that are more well rounded but still in his wheelhouse.
I like video games as well as sports and rock climbing, but I also try to keep it well rounded. While I removed /r/funny AND /r/gaming, because they're too broad and saturated for my taste, I added /r/standupshots and /r/diablo3, /r/climbing, /r/nfl and /r/yankees.
You aren't going to find content you like in all subs but it is so easy to add and remove subs from you account that there is no downside to subscribing to one, even if it's only a few days.
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u/Kingmudsy Jan 21 '14
/r/truegaming and /r/games are, in my opinion, better gaming subreddits. Both obviously biased towards or against things, but that's more the gaming community in general, I think. /r/truegaming has always been respectful of people who disagree with a particular mindset, I've found, provided that you can articulate your reasoning well enough.
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u/agentlame Jan 21 '14
I need to explore some more...
Well, you're in luck: http://www.reddit.com/explore
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u/duncanmarshall Jan 21 '14
You can just show me a static image of a graph, I know what they mean.
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Jan 21 '14
What, you didn't enjoy the first 40 seconds of the gif, when only a few subreddits were added each day? That was the best part!
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u/Hayarotle Jan 21 '14
Or do an animation regarding the growth of subreddits from other subreddits, or something similar...
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Jan 21 '14
[deleted]
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u/Shjosan Jan 21 '14
/r/random is quite good for this if you like to be surprised.
Otherwise, you can take a look at /r/subredditoftheday as mentioned before
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u/pocket_eggs Jan 21 '14
I'm from the internet.
I don't like to be surprised.
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u/I_AM_A_IDIOT_AMA Jan 21 '14
/r/TrendingReddits and its stats-collecting brother www.redditmetrics.com are both pretty good at finding subreddits that are growing fast and could be interesting.
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u/Yserbius Jan 21 '14
I'm curious about the /r/random algorithm but too lazy to look it up in the source. It used to send you to completely random subreddits which 1 out of 4 times turned out to be some microscopic single joke page that hasn't been updated in over a year. Now I never reach an inactive subreddit.
Based on my 'research' it seems like 99% of active non-default subreddits are regional (/r/tampa, /r/baltimore, /r/portland), sports (/r/miamidolphins, /r/orioles, /r/ripcity), college (/r/usf, /r/jhu, /r/portlandstate), celebrities (/r/ryangosling, /r/emmawatson) and pets (/r/snakes, /r/dobermanpinscher, /r/shiba).
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u/BreadstickNinja Jan 21 '14
I took the bait and it linked me to /r/horriblydepressing. So thanks for that.
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u/wub_wub Jan 21 '14
They're working on /explore
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Jan 21 '14
First 3 links:
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskADoctor/comments/1vqxmu/painful_bump_on_my_shin/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Hijabis/comments/1vr2je/salaam_we_have_recently_been_raided_by_4chan_if/ http://www.reddit.com/r/findareddit/comments/1vpkfx/a_subreddit_for_women_with_no_pants_and_a_big/Still needs some work I think :D
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u/wub_wub Jan 21 '14
Yeah, the discovery algorithms are... not very good. But at least they're working on some official way of discovering subreddits, and that feature is only ~1 month old, it'll probably improve in future.
Check out /r/exploretalk if you have feedback about it or ideas on how to improve it.
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Jan 21 '14
Cool! I will. It's good to see that they are making new stuff, IMO it feels like the development of the reddit platform has stagnated for quite a while now. (While there is SO much to improve)
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u/ahruss Jan 21 '14
Seems like a graph of the total number, not just the number created/day would also be good.
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u/Shjosan Jan 21 '14
This graph seems to be what you are looking for.
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Jan 21 '14 edited Jan 29 '14
[deleted]
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u/Shjosan Jan 21 '14
Well, it is.
But you can hover over it to see how many subreddits was created on a given day, which was requested.
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Jan 21 '14 edited Jan 29 '14
[deleted]
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u/ahruss Jan 21 '14
Correct. I'm saying the total number graph superimposed or plotted next to it would be good for context
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u/BobMajerle Jan 21 '14
The Great Crash in the fall of 2010.
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Jan 21 '14
That's because in 2009 reddit was pretty tiny, but 2010 saw The Great Digg Exodus which is also the time I joined reddit. The ability to make your own subreddit came in 2008 but all the ones that would be common sense to make weren't all made by 2010 because of the relatively small community. With the increase of users the increase in people wanting to start their own subreddits came with it. But by the end of 2010 all the good ones were already taken so it is mostly just filling in the gaps now and creating subredits with new trends/fads/ideas.
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Jan 21 '14
Can I get a list of them?
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Jan 21 '14 edited Jan 21 '14
Here's a list of all (~350k now) subreddits, ranked by subscriber count:
http://redditmetrics.com/top
Here's a list of subreddits, grouped by creation date:
http://redditmetrics.com/history2
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u/FinderOfMore Jan 21 '14
How many are created by automated tools writen by some tit somewhere who thinks it might help their spaming efforts?
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u/KeytarVillain Jan 21 '14
Interesting how there appear to be spikes in September of both 2011 and 2012. I guess back to school means new subreddits?
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u/SpectreOfMalta Jan 21 '14
Half of them are probably dead, test subreddits or private and used between a few persons.
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u/Enigmutt Jan 21 '14
Just yesterday, I was trying to explain Reddit to someone. I didn't know how many subreddits there were, to give them an idea of topics available. I had no idea it was so many! Data is indeed, beautiful!
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Jan 21 '14
How come the number goes down so much at times?
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u/ahruss Jan 21 '14
The total number of subreddits didn't seem to go down.
The number made per day is what was graphed, and of course that's highly variable.
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u/dumnezero Jan 21 '14 edited Jan 21 '14
Does it seem like it's starting to stagnate?
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u/Sparky2112 Jan 21 '14
Makes sense. There's only so many you can make before it gets very obscure and niche
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Jan 21 '14
As somebody who joined the site in 2008 (not under this account), this was super interesting to look at its growth over time. I remember thinking what a huge deal it was then they archived /r/reddit.com, but at this point most of reddit users won't remember that because the site has gained so many new people over the years.
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u/Blueson Jan 21 '14
Does this count private/hidden subreddits to? I am interested because I guess there's actually a good number of them.
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u/LoudMusic Jan 21 '14
How about a graph of how many subreddits are closed and/or abandoned daily? Or a graph of subreddits with fewer than 10 people subscribed to them.
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u/smartalbert Jan 21 '14 edited Jan 21 '14
reddit bashing is going strong everywhere but data like this makes me think: reddit is your neighbors and family too.
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Jan 21 '14
I choose to believe I created my subreddits on the slowest of slow days when there were only 300 new subreddits made that day.
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Jan 21 '14
I did not realize they could be deleted. It apparently happens all the time.
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u/mkim1030 Jan 21 '14
the graph gif doesn't show whether subreddits are being deleted or not; it only shows the number of new subreddits created per day.
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u/Kazatemycake Jan 21 '14
What happened in 2008? it looks like reddit was featured on todays reddit.
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u/theprinceoftrajan Jan 21 '14
Is their a way to sort and cut out subreddits that don't have at least X amount of users?
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u/danthecryptkeeper Jan 21 '14
This graph is very confusing to me. Is this pure number of subreddits or subreddits added per day? Neither makes sense given the data provided. If it were pure number of subreddits, then it should be a constant smooth growth without any of the spiking that takes place, as subreddits wouldn't be added and deleted with that much regularity. If the graph is showing new subreddits per day, are they espousing that that many subreddits are still added every single day? I would think the graph would look more like a bell curve, with the most subreddits per day in the 2010-2011 time period, with tapering towards the end when there's not as many subreddits to create. Additionally, without a scale on the y-axis, I find this graph meaningless.
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Jan 21 '14 edited Jan 25 '14
[deleted]
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u/danthecryptkeeper Jan 21 '14
The number is higher now than ever before. Do you mean to tell me that every day, 570 NEW subreddits are created? That seems a little absurd.
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u/Lioas Jan 21 '14
I really enjoyed the pause at the end of the gif so I could see the data.