reddit posts on CNET

Reddit's challenge: More users and higher costs

Reddit has seen its user population skyrocket, but that growth is forcing it to spend money to keep up with the flow.

The company revealed its latest traffic stats in a blog posted yesterday.

Last month, Reddit recorded more than 3.8 billion page views and more than 46 million unique visitors. Those page views alone are double what the Web site saw a year ago, according to VentureBeat.

The huge increase in traffic means Reddit has had to add more servers and other equipment and bring in more staff to maintain its site. That raises the question of how … Read more

Obama returns to Reddit to drum up last-minute votes

With mere hours left before the polls close, President Obama turned to Reddit for a last-minute push to round up support for his re-election bid.

After making headlines in August when his question-and-answer session overwhelmed servers running the popular link-sharing site, the president returned to Reddit this afternoon to remind voters to vote.

"I'm checking in because polls will start closing in this election in just a few hours, and I need you to vote," Obama said in his post. "Millions of Americans have stepped up in support of this campaign over the last 19 months, and today we decide what the next four years look like -- but only if we show up." … Read more

Amazon cloud outage impacts Reddit, Airbnb, Flipboard

Amazon's cloud service is experiencing an outage in the East Coast region, taking down popular sites like Reddit and Airbnb.

The outage has lasted for several hours, limiting access to popular Web sites and causing problems for small businesses and other Amazon cloud users. Along with Reddit and Airbnb, Heroku, FastCompany, Flipboard and others have been impacted.

Amazon isn't saying what happened, but a spokesperson said the problem isn't due to an attack, as some have speculated. A member of hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the outage via a tweet, but the Amazon spokesperson said that'… Read more

Microsoft Surface team stirs up some Reddit buzz

Shortly after announcing pricing for its upcoming Surface tablet, the Microsoft device's engineering team took to Reddit today to hold a virtual Q&A with the site's users.

It was an unusual marketing move by Microsoft, but sending some of its top technical people to interact with the Reddit community offered a rare opportunity for free publicity in a forum where the company could make its pitch to a crowd of technically savvy users. Led by Panos Panay, the general manager of the Surface team at Microsoft, the team answered posted questions for two hours, in what … Read more

EA's headache: Free games for all, thanks to Reddit

Vouchers, coupons, and discounts are often a good tool to entice new customers or promote a product. However, if discount codes are not secured properly, forums and social networking can become a real headache for the company involved.

That is exactly what happened to Electronic Arts over the weekend.

A single post on a gaming forum that included a discount code for $20 worth of software from EA's online store sparked a downloading spree, much to the delight of Reddit users after the code made its way to the popular link aggregation site. Not only could the code be … Read more

Stripe Connect gets the money train rolling for online shops

Merchants or community managers that sell goods or accept donations through larger platforms like Shopify, Reddit, or Skillshare can now quickly start taking credit cards, thanks to a new system from the online payments company Stripe.

Called Stripe Connect, the new system is designed to make it easy for any online shop or group to process credit-card payments from donors or customers.

At the same time, Stripe Connect is also giving Stripe partners a way take advantage of analytics software, CRM systems, and other financial packages in order to see real-time account data. Indeed, the company is hoping that developers … Read more

Dessert is coming: 'Game of Thrones' cake forged from fondant

You could spend $30,000 on a life-size "Game of Thrones" Iron Throne replica crafted from the swords of your fallen foes, but it has one big drawback besides the price. It's not edible.

A Redditor posted photos of a "Game of Thrones" cake a friend's mom made. With a Reddit handle like Craptacularama, you know it's got to be good. It's not just good, it's spectacular.… Read more

Reddit: Obama visit generates most activity ever

President Barack Obama broke all the campaigning rules when he held an unmoderated Q&A session on one of the Internet's most infamous socially aggregated new sites -- and he also broke a Reddit record.

Obama's session on Reddit yesterday attracted more user activity than any other single submission to the forum, more than even the site's front page, Reddit revealed today in a stats breakdown of the virtual visit.

By the end of the day yesterday, the site had clocked nearly 3 million page views for the submission and the number kept growing by the … Read more

The 404 1,121: Where we rock out with the pop out (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- The POTUS did an AMA on Reddit yesterday, and here are the Web site's stats.

- Metal Gear Solid movie heads into production, will be produced by Avi Arad.

- Google begins reminding users of friends' birthdays.… Read more

Windows 8 hybrid-tablet mania

Thursday's tech news roundup calls for a deluge of tablet-PC hybrids:

Everyone is talking about tablet hybrids at this year's IFA electronics trade show in Berlin. Every major laptop maker is getting in the game, all because of the October 26 release of Windows 8. Some choose to have the screen swivel or fold to be held like a tablet, such as the Dell XPS Duo 12 and the Asus Taichi. But most hardware makers are also offering tablets with full keyboards that snap on, like HP's Envy x2 tablet and Samsung's Series 5 and 7 Slates (… Read more