RedditGifts, stylized as redditgifts, was an online user-to-user

gift exchange A gift economy or gift culture is a system of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Social norms and customs govern giving a gift in a gift culture; although there ...

service for

Reddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

users. Free to participate in, RedditGifts was first created by Reddit user "kickme444" (the alias of Dan McComas), while working on freelance projects. The service had involved 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 matched a Reddit user with another Reddit user, and each user had to then send a gift to the other user according to that user's tastes and preferences listed on their profile. Participation was free, although extra perks could be purchased with the optional "RedditGifts Elves" membership, and goods were usually priced between $10 and $25 USD. The service also requested that users leave "thank-you notes" for their gift-giver on the website. The company took a 15 to 20 percent cut of every purchase. After startup, it added a variety of different themed exchanges that ran throughout the year, such as a

Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...

theme and a

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

theme. The service also runs the so-called "Arbitrary Day", which is "a celebration of nothing in particular". Before 2011, approximately $1.5 million had been spent on gifts. Microsoft chairman and philanthropist

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

participated in the service for five years under the username "thisisbillgates". This was confirmed by the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the third largest charitable foundation in the world, holding $ ...

History

RedditGifts was originally created by Reddit user Dan McComas and an anonymous user known as "5days". McComas first conceived the idea in 2009. The site was launched in 2009 with 4,500 participants. RedditGifts reports that 212,894 people worldwide participated in the event during 2014. The site was a three-time

Guinness World Record ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listi ...

holder for the World's Largest Gift Exchange. 2021 Secret Santa exchange was the last one to take place before the RedditGifts site was shut down in January of 2022.

Reddit acquisition

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. Reddit operated 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-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

customer service and infrastructure. In December 2013, while expressing his desire for the Reddit business to become self-sustaining, then-Chief Executive

Yishan Wong Yishan Wong () is an American engineer and entrepreneur who was CEO of Reddit from March 2012 until his resignation in November 2014. With Niniane Wang he is also co-founder of the Mountain View coworking space Sunfire Offices, and was an adv ...

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. On 9 June 2021, Reddit announced the shutdown of RedditGifts, effective at the conclusion of the 2021 Secret Santa exchange. New account registration was disabled when the announcement was issued.

References

External links

Official website

/r/secretsanta subreddit
{{Reddit Giving Internet properties established in 2009 Reddit