I'll admit to being one of the latecomers to reddit in the last year. I use to avoid reddit like the plague, because I thought reddit was just www.reddit.com (the main page) which the few times I visited was filled with random assortment of stuff I didn't care about.
Later, I discovered the true essence of reddit, sub-reddits. Things like r/loseit, r/fitness, r/gamedev, r/<things I actually care about>. Now I'm hooked--I visit the sub reddits multiple times every day. I no longer subscribe to the main reddit feed.
So, for things in store for 2012, you absolutely must focus on "help new users better understand the way reddit works".
In addition, if I were in charge of reddit for a day, I'd get rid of the reddit main page aggregation and instead replace it with a word cloud and the heading "Pick a topic that interests you to visit that sub-reddit for valuable discussion and content". Because, on the whole, the main reddit feed devalues the entire site with slop.
edit: removed misleading line.
Later, I discovered the true essence of reddit, sub-reddits. Things like r/loseit, r/fitness, r/gamedev, r/<things I actually care about>. Now I'm hooked--I visit the sub reddits multiple times every day. I no longer subscribe to the main reddit feed.
So, for things in store for 2012, you absolutely must focus on "help new users better understand the way reddit works".
In addition, if I were in charge of reddit for a day, I'd get rid of the reddit main page aggregation and instead replace it with a word cloud and the heading "Pick a topic that interests you to visit that sub-reddit for valuable discussion and content". Because, on the whole, the main reddit feed devalues the entire site with slop.
edit: removed misleading line.