Social Groups are perhaps Reddit's biggest strength

[Alpha1]

I thought you might find this article interesting because it described how popular social groups can be if they are implemented right and become part of the main user experience design. In general many webmasters feel that social groups are a fail due to vbulletins failing implementation of it. reddit is one modern example of successful social groups.

Reddit Starts Listing Trending Subreddits To Get More Users Into Its Smaller Communities

Subreddits are, perhaps, reddit’s biggest strength.
Introduced in 2008, they’re a huge part of the reason why the site rose to popularity, and why that popularity has yet to taper off.

Want a community for something you like? Build a subreddit. Don’t like the current popular subreddit for that thing? Screw it, build a new one. Anyone can build one — and as long as the subreddit’s content stays legal and abides by the site’s TOS, reddit’s staff generally doesn’t get involved with administrating what goes on there.

It’s easy for one huge community to die almost overnight (see: Digg). But a community made up of a zillion sub-communities? That’s a different beast.

But finding new subreddits to join can be a pain. After you’ve found the subreddits for your hobbies and favorite TV shows, most people only stumble into a new subreddit when someone else mentions it in a comment. Many users, meanwhile, end up subscribing only to the handful of subreddits that reddit puts all new users in by default.

Seemingly trying to combat this, reddit has just starting rolling out a “trending subreddit” feature. It’s unclear if this change is permanent, but it seems to be showing up for most (if not all) users.

The idea: each day, reddit will algorithmically select a half dozen or so non-default subreddits that have seen a particularly high amount of activity lately, and list them at the top of the front page.

Right now, for example, they’re highlighting /r/oddlysatisfying (which collects images of things that are inexplicably satisfying), /r/JapaneseGameShows (which is mostly clips from, you guessed it, Japanese game shows), /r/smashbros (which blew up this week after Nintendo released a bunch of new details about the WiiU Smash Bros release), /r/minimalism, and /r/GameOfThrones.

Based on the submission history of the bots that power the feature, it looks like they’ve been fiddling with their trending algorithms in a semi-public space since at least April 1st

While it’s a handy new feature for users, it’s a pretty clever business move, too. Despite its massive userbase, reddit still isn’t profitable. Advertising to specific communities — like, say, all of /r/GameOfThrones — is one of reddit’s more straightforward revenue streams… but it only really works when lots of subreddits have enough members to make an ad worthwhile. If they can make up-and-coming subreddits grow even faster, everybody wins.

Another clever decision: the trending bar shows up even when a user isn’t logged in. Its a quick, non-obtrusive way of saying to new users, “Hey — there’s more going on here than what’s listed on the front page.”

Update: reddit has officially announced the new feature by way of their changelog, and addressed a few user concerns:

• They’re not saying exactly how the selected subreddits are picked, but note that there’s anti-cheating logic in place. So just getting a bunch of friends to join your subreddit all at the same time probably won’t have an effect
• It’ll only ever show safe-for-work communities
• If you run a subreddit and want to keep it small, you can prevent it from ever showing up in the list in the subreddit’s configuration panel.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/10/re...-get-more-users-into-its-smaller-communities/

 

[intradox]

Maybe something like http://xenforo.com/community/resources/nobita-social-groups-teams.2875/ or one of the other social groups could provide a good foundation.

For my type of forum (general gaming), "subreddit"-type functionality is something I've been trying to implement through the social groups addons but none of them have really had the features I needed.

 

[Alpha1]

Maybe its time to get some people together and formulate a list of features/enhancements that we need to have added to an existing addon. Then pool together and crowd fund it.

 

[drastic]

What about letting members create sub forums to your main categories? There they can discuss and post things like normal and you won't need to call it "groups"

Or if there is a group feature, it needs to be tied into the forums. I haven't seen many sites where groups are really beneficial either.

 

[jauburn]

I think the whole "social groups" thing seems like a good idea to forum designers and admins because, well, they're into either designing or running forums.

Most users are not. They want to go to an already-busy forum, post something, and get a response. That's it, really. And that, in my opinion, is why "social groups" are, at best, underutilized and short-lived.

 

[tyteen4a03]

I think the whole "social groups" thing seems like a good idea to forum designers and admins because, well, they're into either designing or running forums.

Most users are not. They want to go to an already-busy forum, post something, and get a response. That's it, really. And that, in my opinion, is why "social groups" are, at best, underutilized and short-lived.

In this case it's really a matter of survival of the fittest. You're just providing the platform.

 

[agison]

I also think Social Group is a very important feature for a large community.
I spent years looking for a good Social Group addon but until now there is no system like that. Still waiting for a good one.

 

[Alpha1]

I also think Social Group is a very important feature for a large community.
I spent years looking for a good Social Group addon but until now there is no system like that. Still waiting for a good one.

Lets design it.