In the world of online media, saturated though it may feel, we should all be grateful for any new publications that open their doors in an age when so many have closed, or are floundering. So, it's with some fanfare that Reddit is launching Upvoted, their first "legit" content site that will not be a community forum, but a venue for original content of the viral variety that one might find linked and endlessly commented upon on Reddit. It's a venture a la BuzzFeed, Upworthy, and all the rest, but with seemingly fewer listicles, and more stand-alone pieces of writing of the funny, "interesting," animal, or sincerely emotional variety — e.g. their first front-page item "How Three Survivors of Suicide Spent Their Last Days On Earth."

As they explain in an introductory post, Upvoted grew out of a podcast that was launched in January and got 1.6 million downloads, and a subsequent newsletter with 212,000 subscribers. "This launch of upvoted.com is the next logical step in celebrating the Reddit community: a hub for original content to give Redditors credit, as well as go beyond the original story to learn more about the people and ideas that bubble up across this site of 202 million monthly users (bigger than Brazil!)."

The big difference being you can't "upvote" things on Upvoted, or comment on them — the trolls are relegated to returning to actual Reddit for that, at r/upvoted. You can, however, share the stories on Facebook or Twitter like you would on a normal news or content site.

Content, including news-y stories, will be created by a team of around ten writers and editors, and led by former Myspace editorial director Vickie Chang. The idea is that the team will find stories on Reddit, fact-check them, possibly interview the original posters, and write original pieces for Upvoted that have a thread back to Reddit itself.

And this marks Reddit's tacit acknowledgement that in order to grow their business, and attract advertisers, they needed a less chaotic platform. "The borderlands of the web is dangerous territory in which to post an ad or have your brand be associated," as Wired points out. "Reddit has a reputation as the dark, unruly id of the Internet — and that reputation is hurting its business."

It's not wild speculation to foresee that Upvoted could grow to compete with BuzzFeed and use its traffic and clout from its original viral content to become an actual news organization, the way BuzzFeed did. But we'll see.

It could very well require a descent into list land for that.

Previously: Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao 'Rooting For The Humans Over The Trolls' In Washington Post Opinion Piece