Reddit honcho Jen Wong on As Lib podcast

Jen Wong joins the ‘Ad Lib’ podcast to discuss the platform’s growth in spite of old brand safety concerns. One crucial word: video

No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure.

Reddit, the self-styled “front page of the internet,” is on a roll. Despite a lingering reputation for having a brand-unsafe environment (where a small fraction of sub-sections or “subreddits” had historically embraced white nationalism or toxic masculinity), the online bulletin board and collective of micro-communities is on target to double its ad revenue in the U.S. from $100 million in 2019 to $200 million in 2021, according to an eMarketer report from earlier this year.

This growth is largely the result of a one-two punch of cleaning up the platform and building out its advertising business. Today, for example, video ad formats account for more than half of Reddit’s inventory. “That’s pretty amazing because when I got here, we didn’t have video as an ad format,” says Chief Operating Officer Jen Wong. 

Listen to the conversation for more, as we discuss Reddit’s data play, policing fake news in an election year and other Reddit monetization efforts like Reddit Coin

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Tagged as: Jen Wong,  Podcast,  Ad Lib Podcast,  Reddit.