Reddit publishes new “Ask Me Anything” book. But why?
Reddit just made an announcement that they are releasing a new Q&A “coffee table” book titled: Ask Me Anything: Volume One.
OK, so what’s the big deal?
Well, judging by the free preview, it’s essentially a copy and paste job of the most popular questions and answers that users posted over the last few years on Reddit’s /r/IAMA “subreddit”. There is literally nothing more other than a quick introduction, conclusion, minor grammar corrections, and some visual formatting so it (the hardcover copy) looks better on paper instead of a screen. 98% of the content of this book is simply copied and pasted. So little effort went into it that even Reddit’s own users noticed a bunch of errors, which clearly slipped their grueling (yeah right) editing process. I honestly doubt they had even one person proof-read the book front to back. Very professional.
Why would Reddit want to release book based off some questions and answers?
Reddit wants to finally make some money and is trying really (and I mean really) hard to go mainstream. If you haven’t noticed lately, Reddit has been cleaning house and getting rid of any community they feel needs to be “quarantined”. They undoubtedly seek to be more and more attractive to the highest bidder for their ad space. To build that image, they want AMA’s to be a (if not the) centerpiece of the website. Why else would they also release a standalone AMA app last year? Believe it or not, a few years ago, before Reddit reached such massive popularity, their AMA section was full of interesting people with compelling professions and amusing stories to tell. Nowadays, it’s all about celebrities jumping on trying to promote their new movie, album or whatever (just like on talk shows). And it’s usually not even the celebrities themselves, but their “public assistants”, as the infamous Rampart train-wreck of an AMA reminds us. There’s more massive fails of AMAs, but for now let’s not get into that.
Who’s the target market?
Who knows. I can’t see any Redditor ever buying this because why would they want to if they can have it for free on the website they hang out on. And people that don’t use Reddit probably wouldn’t be interested in buying a book based on text coming from a complicated web link aggregator. Again, who knows.
The timing is really odd too. Why would anyone want to publish a book immediately after the holidays and miss out on all the gift giving opportunities?
Guess what! Reddit’s outlandish new privacy policy just kicked in 5 days ago. I kid you not. It caused a mini shit-storm when it was revealed a couple months ago, and had a bunch of their users leaving to a similar platform called Snapzu (requires an invite).
Reddit admins seriously couldn’t even wait an entire week before shamelessly abusing their new authority. They now essentially have a royalty-free and unrestricted license to sell books containing even the loyalest of their member’s comments, and immediately seized the opportunity to do so for a cheap buck. Sadly, that is what Reddit has become. And who knows what they’re up to next. But it’s obvious they’re desperate.
Anyways, I’m done. I’ll stop now because, not gonna lie, I didn’t even read it. The preview was enough. But I can’t wait to see the disaster volume two will be.
Pro tip: You can basically get the book for free here! (I swear! And no it’s not a torrent.)
