RedditGifts, stylized as redditgifts, is an online user-to-user gift exchange service that connects Reddit users around the world with one another. Free to participate in, RedditGifts was first created by Reddit user "kickme444", while working on freelance projects. The service involves signing up, filling out a profile based on the user's preferences, and agreeing to send a gift to a randomly assigned user.
Overview
The service is a gift exchange designed for Reddit users. It matches a Reddit user with another Reddit user, and each user must then send a gift to the other user according to that user's tastes and preferences listed on their profile. Participation is free, although extra perks can be purchased with the optional "RedditGifts Elves" membership, and goods are usually priced between $10 and $25 USD. The service also requests that users leave "thank-you notes" for their gift-giver on the website. Since starting as a Secret Santa exchange, RedditGifts has added a variety of different themed exchanges that run throughout the year, such as Nintendo and Halloween. The service also runs Arbitrary Day, "a celebration of nothing in particular". Up to 2011, approximately $1.5 million had been spent by Reddit users on the project. Microsoft chairman and philanthropist Bill Gates has participated in the service for five years under the username "thisisbillgates", most notably in 2013 and in 2014; The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation confirmed this. Gates was noted to send objects to Reddit users like "Calid7", such as a travel book and a stuffed cow. He has also been known to donate to charities in the name of the user he has been matched with.
History
RedditGifts was originally created by Reddit user Dan McComas, or "kickme444" as known on the site, and "5days". McComas first conceived the idea while working on freelance projects in 2009. The site was launched in 2009 with 4,500 participants; the website reports that 212,894 people worldwide participated in the event during 2014. The site is a three-time Guinness World Record holder for the World's Largest Gift Exchange.
In August 2011, Reddit bought the RedditGifts site. The two site-runners reportedly could not afford to continue maintaining the site while simultaneously working their day jobs. Both site-runners continued to run the website, although they are not involved with the daily operations of Reddit. The company takes a 15 to 20 percent cut of every purchase. Reddit operates the website as part of its ongoing plans to monetise their website. As of December 2013, approximately 14 percent of Reddit's revenue came from running the service, although McComas said that those sales alone could "put Reddit firmly in the black", and that the company may choose to reinvest funds in e-commercecustomer service and infrastructure. In December 2013, while expressing his desire for the Reddit business to become self-sustaining, then-Chief Executive Yishan Wong stated that the RedditGifts service "provides real value", and called it "promising" for the business. Wong increased the staff count dedicated to the project to eight after realising the service's potential.
