The secret to reddit's early growth? Fake accounts

JMH · Jun 23, 2012

No one wants to join a community site with no members, so what do you do to make it more attractive to new users when you're building from the ground up? Simple, do what the founders of reddit did: fake it.

According to co-founder Steve Huffman, the early days of reddit were defined by fast growth thanks to fake accounts set up by none other than Huffman himself and Alexis Ohanian, the other co-founder. “That did two things,” Huffman said in a video for the educational site Udacity. “It set the tone... and it made the site feel alive.” That's right – you have the founders of reddit themselves to thank for the quirky, rebellious, and sometimes just plain weird spirit that defines the most powerful site on the internet.

http://www.neowin.net/news/the-secr...&utm_campaign=Feed:+neowin-main+(Neowin+News)

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The secret to reddit's early growth? Fake accounts

JMH

Emeritus, Contributor