https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/reddit-founders-made-hundreds-of-fake-profiles-so-site-looked-popular/

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have an upvote --

reddit founders made hundreds of fake profiles so site looked popular

In its early days, reddit was built on lies. Sure, lots of code, but
some lies.

Casey Johnston - Jun 21, 2012 10:30 pm UTC

reader comments

68 with

In the early days, reddit's community was built up thanks to hundreds
of fake profiles created by the site's co-founders, according to
Steve Huffman (coincidentally, a reddit co-founder). To make the site
look populated and diverse, Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, the other
founder, would submit links of their own choosing, each time under a
new username.

Huffman explains the strategy in a video for Udacity, an online
education service. When reddit was founded in June 2005, Ohanian and
Huffman were embarrassed by the blank space on the front page. "If
you show up to the site and it's blank, it looks like a ghost town,"
Huffman says in the video.

So the founders made a small addition to the submission page, visible
only to themselves: in addition to the "URL" and "title," there was a
"user" field. Ohanian and Huffman could make up a login in the "user"
field, and if it wasn't already registered by an actual person, the
link would be submitted under the ghost profile. "That did two
things," said Huffman. "It set the tone... and it made the site feel
alive."

A recent reddit submission shows some screenshots of the very early
days of reddit. We could barely discern the usernames in a screenshot
from July 4, 2005, but we think we've found a few old, fake profiles:
rabble, Meegan, and lampshade. All three accounts had pretty highbrow
tastes. But alas, Meegan hasn't submitted in 5 years, while the other
two haven't submitted in 6.

This strikes us as a pretty clever way to get a site up and going,
disingenuous though it might have been. It's certainly more expedient
than the founders harassing their friends to use reddit. It also
presents an interesting juxtaposition with reddit's recent decision
to ban certain publications' links from submission for trying to game
the site.

Growing reddit - CS253 Unit 7 - Udacity

Promoted Comments

  * stagolee | Ars Tribunus Militum jump to post
    Pre-seeding a community is common practice.

    I recommend it to my clients all the time.

    However, I recommend they do it under a brand-related name. NOT
    under the guide of a real "user".
    2318 posts | registered Dec 26, 2006

reader comments

68 with
 
Casey Johnston Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars
Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated
from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics.
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