3 months ago a lot of people joined snapzu. What happened?
About 3 months ago, during the reddit blackout/revolution/drama/whatever, a lot of people joined snapzu. I remember something about 10 thousand invite requests in a couple of days. And the front page was pretty active, both in posts and comments.
Now, most of the posts on the front-page don't have any comments, and the ones that do only have1 or 2.
So... what happened? Why didn't the new users stay?
Also, what are the admin's plans to grow snapzu?
8 years ago by JonSnow
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24 comments
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I am one of those that came over during the exodus. I haven't looked back either. The content on Snapzu is superior and I admit that I access the content without contributing or commenting. I also frequent another non-reddit site and do the same - lurk and access content. I think it is just who I am. I don't think anything can change this about me nor influence me to approach these sites differently. I do however believe the general vibe and quality of commenters and contributors dictates if I stay or never revisit the site. I don't plan on leaving Snapzu anytime soon.
They moved back to Reddit, because Snapzu isn't Reddit.
There's an uprising / revolt / revolution every couple months on Reddit, over an arbitrary decision by the admin team that happens to upset quite a bit of the vocal people. They go on posts and talk about how outrageous the change was and how they're going to leave Reddit once they figure out where to go. Someone will eventually come along to mention a site to go to. This time around, it was Snapzu, Hubski, and Voat. The affected users go to the new sites, hoping to find a new home for them. However, they don't want a completely new place, they just want Reddit - minus whatever upset them. However, they're met with communities with smaller populations and less posts and comments.
Redditors are used to a front page with posts with thousands of votes and comments. Instead, they're met with posts that get tens of upvotes, if popular, and maybe a dozen comments, if there's a good discussion. Redditors are accustomed to thousands of places to enter conversation, either with informative insights to a claim, or (usually) an over-used joke. However, smaller sites make them work for their points. A regurgitated meme probably isn't going to get 1000+ upvotes and gold here, which is what is the norm over there. In order to get a respectable amount of votes and responses, they're forced to post something thought provoking and apt to discuss.
Their other problem is that they're unable to pull themselves out of the rabbit hole. They look at Reddit as the Internet, rather than the mere part of it that Reddit is. They think their problems on Reddit are just as important elsewhere, and the values that they hold from those concerns are equally pressing on other sites. They think that their desire of total free speech all the time is the center of every site's userbase, because they're used to it being a big deal on Reddit. When they're met with a half-hearted "I guess," or "Actually, what you're promoting is kinda dumb," they become appalled, because they can't fathom why their modus operandi isn't held with the same weight in another community. What makes them more upset, is when someone comes out against them and starts to argue, rather than making it rain upvotes and gold for their restatement on something that's been said 1000 times already by their group.
Redditors come into new sites with the expectation that their new homes are going to be the a better Reddit, but find out that their new neighborhood has different people, with different outlooks and priorities, and no relation to their old community. As they discover this more, their problems with Reddit get smaller and smaller, until they finally move back to Reddit, because they really didn't want to leave in the first place.
IMO, you're grasping at straws far harder than necessary. You're basically painting a picture that the only thing they care about is having their ego stroked, which I'd have to say is largely not true. Yes, memes and jokes are spammed and overused (it's hardly anything exclusive to the internet), but I'd say that's hardly the majority of Redditors purely do the number of subreddits and segmented communities withing reddit itself.
The simple fact of the matter is that there's a drastically smaller number of people, which makes many thins not work anymore. I've personally seen forums that were more active than Snapzu. This isn't a matter of "we have higher standards for content", it's more "our numbers are so low that our demographics are very focused". Even a fantastic post in a tribe that's a ghost town will go unheard, and a lot of tribes even have ghosts for leaders.
If you share something political, philosophical, or societal in nature... Snapzu will enjoy it. They regularly get 20-30 upvotes and are the general place of conversation. Post anything else and the demographic that is interested in that content (whether good or bad) is drastically smaller. Is that bad? Depends on who you are. If your greatest interests are within that same demographic, not at all. If your tastes are different, it's surprisingly discouraging. I've caught myself starting to put together a large post (Dota patch notes, linking several YouTubers' thoughts on said notes) and stop about halfway through because I remember that tribe and the gaming tribe have shown zero interest in Dota (at least from my experience). So, I've refrained from that entire type of content.
Again, that's not a lack of internet fame and ego stroking. That's walking into an empty room, talking to the wall, and finally getting bored. But... with all this said, political or business news does well here and I still check fairly regularly (and contribute) for those things. I tend to run across stuff here that I don't see somewhere else.
Yeah, looking back, I think I hit the egotistical point a little too much. I was partly attempting to just say that they're not here, because it's not Reddit.
With the migrations, the largest mass of people come back to Reddit, because they left Reddit in spite, rather than just moving to a platform that they liked better. Once they simmer down a bit, the old habit of checking the front page takes over and they never visit the other sites again. For the rest that go back, they do so, because they couldn't find anything to really replace Reddit.
The one thing that Reddit offers, over pretty much any other site, is a detailed level of diversity. As you said, anything that gets posted, that's not favorable to the largest demographic, is just ignored out of disinterest. On Reddit, that doesn't happen as much. Since the site is so massive, it's possible to find a large and active community that cares about a topic. Snapzu isn't really strong in that regard, because it's just so small.
The reason I mentioned people coming to the new site, and finding out that Reddit isn't the internet was a bit more slandering than I intended, but I was trying to use it as an example of how they don't find what they're looking for. When people come over, that are upset over something that happened over Reddit, it's on their mind and they want somewhere that they can vent. They find a site, post something about the issues, which gets a small response, but they get a little backlash of the main community, because they really don't care about what's going on at another site. In combination with the lack of specific communities that they're used to, they find that they're kinda talking to a wall, as you said, and just leave. I hope that's a little more elaborative and less vindictive, and I'm sorry if I came off as a little harsh.
I think a lot of people leave Reddit looking for Reddit 2.0. They want that large community, with conversations about anything they desire to talk about, but with a new name, interface, and system void of the problems that they had on Reddit. Instead, they find smaller communities that are vastly different than what they were hoping, so they move back to the best option that they have.
More assumptive than harsh, but no worries :)
I will agree, even I would like to find Reddit 2.0, but I don't think that's going to happen. Hard to move the attention of several million people, you know?
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Eh. I tried, really. I joined a year ago (I think) but wasn't really active, and I had high hopes when the apparent reddit exodus happened.
The submissions have been great, but the discussions are severely lacking. And now that reddit has solved its Pao drama, I feel like it's settled back to some form of semi-stable equilibrium. I still prefer Snapzu for a lot of reasons, but... Well, reddit has the links, and it has the discussions.
Right now I'd say handpicked subreddits > Snapzu > default reddit.
And that's the problem, really. I want this place to succeed but it doesn't have the critical mass of discussions yet.
While no comments is something worrisome since it points out our small population, it might not be all that bad. A common thing that happened on Reddit would be people who would just read the title of the post and go directly to the comments section to know what were the top opinions about the whatever was posted. "How should I feel?" was a common joke. Sometimes you would get people who wouldn´t even read the articles, they just want an excuse to scream their opinions or make some stupid joke about something barely related to the title.
Usually the only comments I would pay attention would be of specialists of the area, like a scientist talking about his/her area of expertise and even then you had to watch out because quite often someone would point out "this person isn´t a nurse, just look at the comment history!" All this lying, attention whoring, drama, poweruser circles, etc. really wore me out.
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As someone who has joined snapzu recently, it's either due to the confusing ways to look at content, or that most people went back to reddit.
I like it though. This place is small enough to keep my interest.
I've just recieved my invite. I like it in here. I'll also send some invitations to my friends.