Canna_Business
2 months ago
How Companies Are Selling THCa Online Without a License:
The 2018 Farm Bill has created a legal loophole for selling THCa online. THCa, which is non-psychoactive until heated, can be sold legally if it tests under 0.3% Delta-9 THC on a dry weight basis. This allows companies to bypass traditional cannabis licensing and state regulations.
Key Points:
2018 Farm Bill: Permits cannabis products with under 0.3% Delta-9 THC.
THCa Products: Non-psychoactive until heated but converts to Delta-9 THC when smoked or vaped.
No License Needed: THCa meets legal THC limits, avoiding the need for a cannabis license.
Consumer Impact: Consumers can buy THCa products online, evading stricter state cannabis laws.
Summary: The 2018 Farm Bill has inadvertently allowed THCa products to be sold legally online by staying within THC limits, despite their psychoactive potential when heated.
For example,
https://www.reddit.com/r/CultoftheFranklin/
MiamiGent
6 months ago
RDDT Reddit Shines in First Earnings Report, Sending Stock Soaring
Story by Aisha Counts • 15h • Bloomberg
RDDT
(Bloomberg) -- Reddit Inc. shares jumped as much as 16% in premarket trading after improvements to the social media platform’s advertising system helped push quarterly sales higher than expected in its first results as a public company.
Revenue increased 48% to $243 million in the period ended March 31, the social media company said Tuesday in a statement. Analysts, on average, estimated $211.9 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Reddit’s initial public offering in March was one of the largest on a US exchange this year, raising about $748 million. Its strong debut was bolstered by the site’s large user base and data licensing agreements with artificial intelligence companies, which will let those firms use Reddit’s data to train its AI systems. Reddit first filed confidentially for an IPO in 2021.
The company projected revenue of $240 million to $255 million in the current period ending in June. Analysts, on average, estimated $227.6 million. Reddit said the growth was spurred by investments in making the site easier to use and improvements in its ad targeting technology.
“It was a strong start to the year and a milestone quarter for Reddit and our communities,” co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Steve Huffman said in the statement. “We see this as the beginning of a new chapter as we work toward building the next generation of Reddit.”
If gains hold, the shares will rise the most since the week of the company’s March listing, when stock gained more than 90% over four days. Reddit closed at $49.40 in New York on Tuesday and had gained 45% since the IPO.
The text-based social media company said it now has more than 82.7 million global daily users — a jump of 37% from a year earlier — who post multiple times each day to the site’s forums. Reddit was founded in 2005 before being acquired by Conde Nast a year later and then spun out as a private company again in 2011.
“Reddit’s high-20% to mid-30% growth in daily average users seems sustainable on the steady increase of communities and content on its platform, which has boosted its relevance for training large language models,” Mandeep Singh, a Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst, said in a note after the results were released.
Reddit reported a net loss of $575.1 million in the quarter compared with a loss of $60.9 million a year earlier. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were $10 million, compared with a loss of $50.2 million in the quarter a year earlier.
While Reddit has been popular among users, it has struggled to reach profitability. Last year, the company reported a net loss of $91 million on revenue of $804 million. Historically, about 98% of the company’s sales have come from advertising.
Moving forward, Reddit plans to diversify its revenue streams by licensing its data to AI companies and boosting commerce on the platform. In its S-1 filing, the company said it entered into data licensing agreements worth $203 million, with terms ranging from two to three years. Reddit reported $20 million in data licensing revenue in the first quarter.
“I think the next biggest business model for us is what we call the user economy, so this is users making money from other users on Reddit,” Huffman said in an interview after the earnings release. Reddit users can currently make money from subscriptions, digital gifts and collectibles such as avatars.
The company also plans to increase sales by expanding internationally and translating Reddit posts to other languages, he said. About 50% of Reddit’s users come to the site from outside the US, but the company expects that number to grow to 80% to 90% in the future.
“We believe this will not only drive growth in the near term, but also over time will allow users from all over the world to connect regardless of the languages they speak,” Huffman said in a conference call after the results were released.
abrooklyn
6 months ago
Reddit Announces First Quarter 2024 Results
Source: Business Wire
Record user traffic, Daily Active Uniques (“DAUq”) increased 37% to 82.7 million
Revenue increased 48% to $243.0 million, nearly doubling growth rate from prior quarter
Net loss driven by IPO expenses, first profitable Q1 on an Adjusted EBITDA basis
Operating cash flow of $32.1 million and positive free cash flow of $29.2 million
Reddit, Inc. (NYSE: RDDT) today announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2024. Reddit’s complete financial results and management commentary can be found in its shareholder letter on Reddit’s Investor Relations website at https://investor.redditinc.com and investor relations subreddit r/RDDT at https://www.reddit.com/r/RDDT/.
“It was a strong start to the year and a milestone quarter for Reddit and our communities as we debuted as a public company,” said Steve Huffman, Co-Founder and CEO of Reddit. “We see this as the beginning of a new chapter as we work towards building the next generation of Reddit.”
DAUq increased 37% year-over-year to 82.7 million
Weekly Active Uniques (“WAUq”) increased 40% year-over-year to 306.2 million
Revenue increased 48% year-over-year to $243.0 million, Ad Revenue increased 39% year-over-year to $222.7 million
Gross margin was 88.6%, an improvement of 500 basis points from the prior year
Net loss was $575.1 million, as compared to $60.9 million in the prior year. Stock-based compensation expense and related taxes were $595.5 million, as compared to $13.2 million in the prior year, driven by IPO charges
Adjusted EBITDA was $10.0 million, as compared to $(50.2) million in the prior year
Operating cash flow was $32.1 million, an improvement of $28.0 million from the prior year
Free Cash Flow was $29.2 million. Capital expenditures were $2.9 million
FooBarAndGrill
7 months ago
On Tuesday, Reddit, whose message boards helped fuel the 2021 meme stock rally, will report its first quarterly results since going public and launch its own innovation of a sort, taking questions from the investing public that will be posted, but where else, on Reddit.
https://investor.redditinc.com/news-events/news-releases/news-details/2024/Reddit-to-Announce-First-Quarter-2024-Results-on-Tuesday-May-7-2024/default.aspx
TRUISM
7 months ago
It's not just you: Reddit is taking over Google
EXCERPT
Hugh Langley Apr 17, 2024,
BUSINESS INSIDER
* Google's AI search engine and the rise of forum posts like Reddit and Quora are upheaving SEO.
* Google's shift to promoting more human, helpful sites has led to a surge in traffic to Reddit.
* This rise in Reddit's visibility is being exploited by spammers, raising concerns.
If you think you've been seeing an awful lot more Reddit results lately when you search on Google, you're not imagining things.
The internet is in upheaval, and for website owners the rules of "winning" Google Search have never been murkier.
Google's generative AI search engine is coming from one direction. It's creeping closer to mainstream deployment and bringing an existential crisis for SEOs and website makers everywhere.
Coming from the other direction is an influx of posts from Reddit, Quora, and other internet forums that have climbed up through the traditional set of Google links.
Data analysis from Semrush, which predicts traffic based on search ranking, shows that traffic to Reddit has climbed at an impressive clip since August. Semrush estimated that Reddit had over 132 million visitors in August 2023. At the time of publishing, it was projected to have over 346 million visitors in April 2024.
Organic search traffic to Reddit over the past two years Semrush
None of this is accidental. For years, Google has been watching users tack on "Reddit" to the end of search queries and finally decided to do something about it.
Google started dropping hints in 2022 when it promised to do a better job of promoting sites that weren't just chasing the top of search but were more helpful and human.
Last August, Google rolled out a big update to Search that seemed to kick this into action. Reddit, Quora, and other forum sites started getting more visibility in Google, both within the traditional links and within a new "discussions and forums" section, which you may have spotted if you're US-based.
The timing of this Reddit bump has led to some conspiracy theories. In February, Google and Reddit announced a blockbuster deal that would let Google train its AI models on Reddit content. Google said the deal, reportedly worth $60 million, would "facilitate more content-forward displays of Reddit information," leading to some speculation that Google promised Reddit better visibility in exchange for the valuable training data. A few weeks later, Reddit also went public.
A Google spokesperson told BI: "Our agreement with Reddit absolutely did not include ranking its content higher on Search."
Indeed, SEO experts have watched this Reddit bump since August when Google rolled out a crucial search update six months before the deal was announced.
It's not just Reddit. Q&A forum Quora is getting a huge visibility bump in Google search results, per Semrush and Sistrix data. Google says "hundreds" of other forums and communities across the web are also getting the bump.
Still, given Reddit's size, its rise is the most noticeable. Per Sistrix data, Reddit is now as visible in top Google Search results as Instagram.
Reddit's visibility in Google Search now matches that of Instagram Sistrix
Steve Paine, marketing manager at Sistrix, called the rise of Reddit "unprecedented."
"There hasn't been a website that's grown so much search visibility so quickly in the US in at least the last five years," he told Business Insider.
Right now, Reddit ranks high for product searches. Reddit's main competitors are Wikipedia, YouTube, and Fandom, Paine said, and it also competes in "high-value commercial searches," putting it up against Amazon. The "real competitors," he said, are the subreddits that compete with brands on the web.
Giving the people what they want
Why is Google doing this, and why now?
The company's stance here is simple: it's giving users what they want.
"Our research has shown that people often want to learn from others' experiences with a topic, so we've continued to make it easier to find helpful perspectives on Search when it's relevant to a query," a Google spokesperson told BI. "Our systems surface content from hundreds of forums and other communities across the web, and we conduct rigorous testing to ensure results are helpful and high quality."
A Lady Gaga Google Search shows how AI is upending the world's most profitable online business. 'Site owners are terrified.'
Responding to a post on X, Google search liaison Danny Sullivan said users not only like seeing "forum content" but that they "proactively seek it out."
This shift in search behavior has already been happening for several years. In July 2022, Google's search head Prabhakar Raghavan said younger users were turning to alternative sources such as TikTok and Instagram for information and recommendations. Last year, during the Reddit blackout in June, Google Search got considerably worse.
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