Social news website Reddit will be making an announcement at its invite-only party tomorrow in San Francisco. Invites include the image above, prominently featuring a mysterious penguin alongside the company’s logo (the alien thing). So what are they getting at?
Penguins have long been associated with the open-source OS Linux, stemming from Linus Torvalds’s decision to use one as Linux’s mascot (he’s named Tux, and you can see him here). Could Linux somehow be involved in Reddit’s announcement?
Earlier this year Reddit launched a feature that let users customize their own “Reddits” by topic, allowing them to selectively filter stories. It’s possible that Reddit is going one (big) step further and introducing an open source version of Reddit that will allow users to create their own hosted social news service.
Is that a stretch? Yep. We actually have no idea what they’re announcing. That penguin might just be there to indicate that the beer is free… or cold.
Think you know what they’ll announce? Give us your best guess in the comments. Whoever guesses right first gets a free TechCrunch t-shirt.
Update: Brent Csutoras may have gotten a peek at one of Reddit’s new features, which appears to be tagging. This doesn’t have anything to do with the penguin though, so Reddit may have a few more things up their sleeves.
Update 2: Yup, they are open sourcing the Reddit code. Here’s the announcement. And here’s our update.
They’re going to open source reddit.
I wouldn’t leap to conclusions. The penguin appears in reddit logos all the time for some reason.
My guess will be open app or merge.
Nat
http://www.workersinc.com
they will move their headquarters to the north pole because they like penguins.
The pilot of YourWeek? http://blog.reddit.com/2008/06.....nline.html
@4
Penguins are only found in the southern hemisphere, so moving their offices to the North Pole would be a little counter-productive.
they are leaving yahoo
lol i couldnt pass that up
I’m not so sure that I would consider this *invite only* when anyone that reads their blog is invited:
http://blog.reddit.com/2008/06.....night.html
Duh! The alien knocked up the penguin! Can’t you see she’s already showing?
I knew I should have doodled a breadpig (http://breadpig.com) instead of a penguin…
Some announcement about a partnership wherein Reddit will be used to power voting on stories on some big news site. Could also be linked into a “whitelabel Reddit” software project, but I’ll go with a partnership as my main guess.
I think Reddit has been sold. Buyer = Yahoo! or C|Net
partner with linux?
Great collection of idiotic quotes. Love it!
Reddit will anounce a publishing deal with Penguin.
A completely open API, Digg-labs like mini apps, and slightly revised algorithm.
@Joel
Reddit is already owned by Wired…
Reddit is offering a bunch of developer tools that while aren’t open source, will help developers. Such as widgets, feeds, API, etc…
Perhaps inclusion with Google’s OpenSocial, FriendConnect…
I don’t want TC to be the only one giving away startup schwag (presently a more stable currency than the USD). I’m giving away one of our special event shirts (designed for the mystery announcement) to whomever comes up with the right answer first http://www.redditall.com/2008/.....out-i.html
No, it’s not a breadpig shirt http://breadpigtees.com
PS. Does all this linking get flagged as comment spam? I wonder…
@6 I said they liked penguins. I didn’t say they wanted to be with them
muahahaha.
Reddit will create their own Linux Distro. The look and feel of this operating system will make you think you’ve awoken in 1985. That’s they way I feel when I go to reddit anyway. Or Reddit will create an opensource game where you hunt and destroy bland blogs….
Probably something simple like they are releasing a reddit widget that you can place on your website (Similar to what digg released recently).
Or they are getting penguins drunk and mating them with slightly creepy, blank-staring, red-eyed aliens.
Either way, I’m excited.
@Jason Kincaid technically there are some penguins in the northern hemisphere. The Galapagos has islands just north of the equator with penguins.
I don’t care and just want to find the party.
F/OSS … free as in beer free http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Beer =
My guess is your guess, Jason.
And video. It’s SO about video.
I meant almost exclusively about video.
They will be announcing that it is not actually an open bar.
the penguin is the alien’s friend. it doesn’t symbolize anything.
it is unlikely they are announcing an api, as an api was included in the last site update.
it’s probably yourweek, which looks about as promising as farkTV
I believe it is what @Kieran said…. least that is what i though when i first saw it
reddit-flavored linux
Yet another platform/api. Maybe the penguin signifies out of the box linux interop?
Does it count if I kind of already know the answer?
http://www.brentcsutoras.com/2.....ot-tagged/
There is a saying in the open source community that GPL’d software is
“free as in freedom, not as in beer” meaning you are free to use the code however you wish, but you can still charge for the software. This metaphore might mean that something is going to be free as in freedom AND free as in beer. Maybe code reddit runs on it’s servers (probably on top of Linux) will be released into the open source community, for freedom, and for free of charge. They might try to build a community around the platform, or open it to other uses. They might be making some sort of contribution to the open source community. I’m not that familiar with reddit however, so I don’t see what that would mean.
THEY ARE GOING TO USE TAGS WITH SUBMISSIONS
Tags AND profiles tomorrow.
My vote goes for Open Source Reddit, although I leave the speculation of “how much” to others.
@Brent
Nice find
merging (buying) digg
Copying diggs CSS
They’ve discovered that Reddit can heal the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, heralding a new age of tropical weather in Penguinland. Partay!
apis/open/whatever, such a cliche
everyone has an api, no one is using them.
a colossal waste of energy
I will say that i think it has to do with the site itself. Alexis slipped and said the programmers have been working their asses off for the announcement date.
All this time, Reddit has been running on a Windows server (Gasp!) and they are moving it to a Linux server.
Reddit might be moving to a Linux Server.
Let’s not read too much into it…to me, the penguin with a beer seems to mean: Open Bar
@38 I’m pretty sure that the Twitter API is getting a lot of use. Perhaps even more than twitter.com itself…
I don’t know but a drunk penguin says funny youtube video all over it.
@Scott Conde Nast actually. But, if you look at all of their properties though, Reddit is an odd fit for them.
Tagging or API’s make sense too. But why setup a meeting just to announce tagging? It has to be bigger than that…
May be they are doing a complete revamp.
Brand new interface. Possibly with more social features.
they’re announcing Drunkkit, a social voting system for bars
Bet it’s somethign about x of posts or x of users or whatever…