Reddit goes 'Independent,' says more deals to come

Social news site Reddit, which was acquired by Conde Nast's Wired Digital division two years ago, has announced the start of a new strategy to distribute its technology around the Web. It's partnered with the U.K.'s Independent newspaper to install Reddit technology on its Web site and encourage readers to vote up and down on the news.

While a prominent button for the Independent's internal voting system will appear on each of the publication's online news stories (these will show up in a few weeks), it will also accept links submitted from around the Web.

"It's this kind of open mentality that really excited us about working with them," co-founder Alexis Ohanian said in an e-mail.

Reddit opted to make its code open-source in June, an announcement that would presumably lead to the kinds of deals that the company announced on Thursday. It's far smaller than rival Digg, but seems to have a clear message in place: that Reddit is about distribution, not a standalone site.

[metaprinter]

For the newspaper side of this story I interviewed Jimmy Leach, editorial director for digital at The Independent. Your readers may be interested. The interview is here: http://metaprinter.com/?p=569

Cheers,
Robert Ivan