reddit

Reddit Starts Trending

There’s a new way to discover communities on Reddit, as one of Twitter’s most popular and useful tools has migrated to the “front page of the internet.”

Redditors now have the ability to see which subreddits have been trending on the day, in an effort to get users exposed to the site’s smaller communities. According to Tech Crunch, the site will use an algorithm to highlight a handful of non-default subreddits that have been seeing high amounts of activity.

Logo for new subreddit of trending communities on Twitter

The “Trending Subreddits” logo on Reddit

The trending subreddits are located near the very top of the front page, above the top post on the first page. The trending subreddits for today were “oddlysatisfying,” “JapaneseGameShows,” “smashbros,” “minimalism,” and “gameofthrones.” The focuses of these are pretty self-explanatory.

The deafults, that ate excluded, are those that non-registered users see when they visit the site, and include, among others: Gaming, AskReddit, Funny, Pics, Technology, TodayILearned, WorldNews, and Music.

So far, reactions have generally been positive. The highest-voted comment on the “TrendingSubreddits” thread, reads,

Huh this is new, I like this idea. Its a good way to discover new subs.

Others used words like “fantastic addiction,” “one of the best new features in years,” and “great feature.”

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Trailblazing Goalie Shannon Szabados Draws Support Across Social Media

Published on Elle Beaver – March 11, 2014

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It’s been a busy couple weeks for Shannon Szabados.

Just over two weeks ago, the 27 year-old was laying at centre ice of the Bolshoy Ice Dome in Sochi with a gold medal around her neck and her 20 teammates standing behind heras Szabados celebrated a second straight Olympic gold medal win.

On Wednesday, Szabados accomplished another remarkable feat: suiting up with the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers for a morning practice. Just two days later, Szabados joined a short list of women who have signed contracts to play for a professional men’s league when she joined the Columbus Cottonmouths of the Southern Professional Hockey League.

Despite the impressive achievement of practicing with the Oilers, it wasn’t quite what some fans wanted. The previous night, users took to Twitter with the hashtag #SzabadosForBackup as they crossed their fingers to witness history. Earlier in the day, the Oilers traded away their backup goalie Ilya Bryzgalov and in turn brought in another goalie, Viktor Fasth, in a separate trade. The problem staring down the Oilers was a big one: with a game the same night that the trade happened, they were without a backup goalie.

Shannon Szabados Edmonton Oilers Goalie

Surprisingly, this conflict happens more than expected. Due to a rule in effect from 1966, the NHL requires teams to have two goalies dressed for each game. In the past website producers, beer league veterans, and local hockey coaches have all gotten frantic calls to dress as an emergency backup.

Edmonton’s situation was more unique: they had (a bit) more time to organize a backup goalie, and the city is heavily ingrained into the history of hockey and has a wealth of local talent. Szabados, a native of Edmonton and current starting goalie for the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology men’s hockey team, was a serious contender. Had she got the call, she would have been the first female to dress for a regular season NHL game.

Ultimately, the Oilers dressed Kurtis Mucha, the starting goalie for the University of Alberta’s men’s team. While the hopes of creating history were dashed, the real progress was happening online.

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True Detective: Giving Life To Our Favourite Characters Online

Imagine if you could bring your favourite fictional characters to life. To get a peek into how they live outside of the pages of their novel or behind the scenes of their TV show.

Well, with Nic Pizzolato’s philosophical and metaphorical Rustin Cohle, people have decided to do just that. “Rust,” as his few friends in HBO’s smashing new hit True Detective call him, has captured the minds of the more than 12 million viewers who have tuned in weekly for the past two months. On Sunday, the first season wraps up and Rust will make his last appearance on the silver screen.

Mystery of the Yellow King fake Hardy Boys book based on True Detective

Copyright © 2014 supermercado
This mockup reimagining True Detective as a Hardy Boys book demonstrates how fans are making the show their own. Click the photo for more details on this piece, and on how to purchase your own.

To put it in the most simplistic way possible, the character of Cohle is deep, dark, and complex. Matthew McConaughey, the actor who took on the challenge of capturing Cohle – and has done an incredible job, according to just about everyone – went so far as to create a 450-page graph to trace Cohle’s life, and many personalities, over the 17 years spanned on the show. These multiple distinct personalities, and a knack for questioning the meaning of life and the universe in utter poetic language, have set Cohle apart as one of the most memorable television characters we’ve seen in this millennium.

People have eaten it up. If “true” television success is to be measured by engagement rather than pure ratings in today’s media environment, True Detective is successful in every way.

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Obama Opens Up Online

From The Millstone – August 30, 2012

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In the early evening of Wednesday, the United States President Barack Obama got a chance to answer questions directly from voters (Democrats, Republicans, and undecideds alike). However, this wasn’t your basic open forum at a debate, town hall, or rally. No, President Obama sat down at a laptop in a room in Charlottesville, Virginia, and answered questions from anonymous askers on the online social news site, reddit.

Shitty_Watercolour, a popular reddit user, welcomes President Obama with one of his works.

Fresh off the heels of a rally at the host city of the University of Virginia where Obama appealed to the youth vote, he further showed his dedication to the youth vote with his reddit Q&A, colloquially known as an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the site.

For those unfamiliar with the site reddit.com, it’s difficult to explain. The site is an open-source social news site, where users have the ability to post photos, links (to newspaper articles, websites, etc.), or start discussions in one of thousands of “sub-reddits”. Other users then have the opportunity to comment on the original post. The sub-reddits each have a different focus (the list is endless, ranging in everything from US politics, to funny images, to city-specific reddits like Ottawa, to hobbies and jobs), with one dedicated specifically to these AMA’s.

The AMA’s have quickly become a kind-of hidden secret for politicians, as Obama is not the first to face the reddit hive. Previously, the likes of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, Colorado representative Jared Polis, and others have taken to the web to answer questions.

When Obama went up, the site went crazy with excitement (even leading to the site occasionally crashing.) The AMA has received over 19,000 comments at the time of writing, and that number will likely only grow as those from other parts of the world continue to log on and see.And while Obama dedicated 30 minutes out of his busy campaign trail to “be real” with the reddit community, the question of its success is hard to determine.

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