Even if you’ve never heard of Reddit, you’ve almost certainly seen content generated by the popular user-powered site.

Essentially a collective of communities, today we’re learning more about the alternative news and content powerhouse.

Community spirit

Reddit was founded in 2005 by University of Virginia grads Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohania.

The name is a play on the term “Read it” and the site was an evolution of the original bulletin board system.

Reddit is composed of different categories, called subreddits, which are populated with content created, curated and modified by users.

Submissions rise or fall depending on the number of upvotes, downvotes and comments they receive.

Big news

Today there are over 8000 subreddits covering everything from train enthusiasts and economics to politics and pop culture. And plenty of kittens.

The site is active is over 200 countries, and in the US 6% of all internet users access the site.

AMA

One of Reddit’s most popular features is the AMA (Ask Me Anything). Essentially a forum where a user answers unscripted questions from the Reddit community.

Over the years Reddit AMAs have hosted a range of high-flyers including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Gates, Madonna and and US President Barack Obama.

Data crunch

The largest demographic of Redditors are males aged 18 – 29, who make up 15% of the site’s audience.

Over typical month Reddit sees 169 million unique visitors and a massive 7.5 billion views.

Money bags

Reddit was acquired by Conde Nast Publications in 2006, although since 2012 it has operated as independent entity.

The site has popular backers – Snoop Dogg and Jared Leto recently bought shares in Reddit worth US$50 million, pushing the value of the company to US$500 million.