He even uploaded this pic to Imgur like a real Redditor would. (Photo: Imgur)

A little over 20 minutes ago, President Obama announced that he would be doing an AMA on Reddit, and the Internet promptly imploded. Within minutes of the announcement, it was confirmed by both Reddit moderators and the New York Times. Ladies, geeks and lady geeks everywhere swooned at the photo of the President stationed at his Macbook prepared to address the Reddit masses, who will undoubtedly only ask questions about weed.

Founder Alexis Ohanian took the opportunity to wax a lil' nostalgic: "Fun fact," he tweeted. "POTUS doing @reddit AMA from C-Ville, VA -- where 7 yrs ago Steve & I founded the company that would build @reddit."

We promptly gChatted Reddit general manager Erik Martin: "On a scale of 1-10, how much are you freaking out right now?" we asked. "Trying to stay cool right now," he replied. "But still at an 11."

Reddit's servers took a pounding from the heavy traffic heaped on the site following the announcement: We got a "Reddit is under heavy load right now" error page several times while trying to read the AMA, and eventually got through, but only in read-only mode. ("Read only is being thrown out intermittently," Mr. Martin told us.)

Read-only (Photo: Reddit)

We still can't get the page to load to display the President's answers, but an earlier version of the post gives a glimpse into the (unbearably stereotypical) questions Redditors are asking: Yes, they are about space and Internet freedom.

Still, this is an exciting moment for the 7-year-old social news site that's seen tremendous growth over the last few years.

"How the hell did you guys pull this one off?" asked one Redditor, who later emailed Betabeat to identify himself as Beau Agnello.

"This is reddit. You all pulled this off by becoming the front page of the internet," replied Mr. Ohanian, adding "edit: I'm also hoping the administration was so responsive because secretly they're all redditors."

Update:

A screenshot posted to Twitter offers us a glimpse into what's currently going on inside the AMA: Neckbeards correcting POTUS's grammar:

(Photo: Twitter.com/gwynz)

Update 2:

Aaaand we have another typo. Oof.

(Photo: YFrog, user: jtes)

Update 3:

AllThingsD asked Mr. Ohanian how he got President Obama to do the AMA. He responded:

There’s not a lot to it. I’ve gotten to know quite a few folks in the WH & Obama campaign team over the years and it was always something I brought up when I got the chance. There are quite a few redditors at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and at the campaign HQ — given the prominence of reddit, it’s an easy sell.

Oh, you fancy, huh?

Update 4:

President Obama seems to have a weird relationship with capitalization. He doesn't capitalize the name of his wife or Afghanistan, but he does, however, cap Chicago Bulls.

Our copy editor adds that there are at least four grammatical errors in this sentence: "We need to start with passing the Disclose Act that is already written and been sponsored in Congress - to at least force disclosure of who is giving to who."

Update 5:

The American flag flair bestowed upon the President's username is the cutest:

(Photo: Reddit)

Update 6:

The AMA is officially over, with POTUS heading back to Washington D.C. in time for dinner. He posted the following update by way of a goodbye:

LAST UPDATE: I need to get going so I'm back in DC in time for dinner. But I want to thank everybody at reddit for participating - this is an example of how technology and the internet can empower the sorts of conversations that strengthen our democracy over the long run. AND REMEMBER TO VOTE IN NOVEMBER - if you need to know how to register, go to http://gottaregister.com. By the way, if you want to know what I think about this whole reddit experience - NOT BAD!

Knows his memes? Not bad.

(Photo: Know Your Meme)

Update 7:

Adam Fletcher, spokesman for the Obama campaign, has provided Betabeat with the following quote:

“More than 40 million people use Reddit every month, and the President’s “Ask Me Anything” session gave him a chance to answer directly a wide variety of questions from this group.”

The infamous pic. (Photo: Businessweek)

Last night, Digg founder Kevin Rose announced that he was doing an AMA on Reddit. Following the announcement, he immediately vacated the site and did not return to it for 24 hours. As many of the interested Redditors are refugees from Digg, they did not take kindly to this crucial misunderstanding of how exactly Reddit works. Generally, you don't announce you're doing an AMA unless you intend to answer questions at that very moment.

"Kevin just tweeted an Instagram picture at Alcatraz," wrote one user. "Pretty sure he forgot about this."

"Maybe it is symbolic of being trapped in an AMA he regrets," retorted another.

Some time this afternoon, Mr. Rose returned to the thread in order to answer the (mostly indignant) questions that had collected while he was away. Perhaps to make up for his tardiness, he even took the time to record a few video replies to Redditors' questions.

Our favorite response had to be when he opened up about that embarrassingly overused Businessweek cover depicting a baby-faced Mr. Rose making an overenthusiastic "thumbs up" gesture while donning a backwards hat and giant earphones.

Mr. Rose had once explained the photo to Valleywag, but not in such detail. According to him, he was jokingly making the "thumbs up" gesture at the Digg creative director when the photog snapped the picture. The hat and headphones were due to Businessweek insisting he bring props that made him look like a young and fresh entrepreneur.

According to Mr Rose:

"Who would ever want that photo to be on the cover of any magazine? [The photographer] promised me he wouldn't use it....they don't give you any say in that stuff and it showed up on the cover of Businessweek. You take a look at something like that and say, 'God I really wish they would have chose a different photo.' And another part of me is like, 'You know what, I don't care if I was topless on the cover of Businessweek, because it's just an honor to be on that magazine.' It was kind of bittersweet."

Ah, to have the problems of the rich and tech famous.

(Photo: Network World)

Microsoft Outlook now operates in-browser and is apparently a legitimate Gmail competitor? No flipping desks for Steve Ballmer today. [Wired]

Things are not looking good in iPad mag land. The Daily has laid off a 1/3rd of its staff. [AllThingsD]

Kevin Rose did an AMA, just in time for the release of the new Digg. It got less than 1,000 upvotes and apparently he didn't actually answer any questions. [Reddit]

Two online poker sites are paying millions in damages following fraud and money laundering charges. Guess the government called their bluff. [New York Times]

Times Square will broadcast the Mars landing on one of those gigantic screens. The space geek in us is currently fighting with the person in us who fucking hates Times Square. [NASA]

UBS lost $356 million in the Facebook IPO. Yikes. [The New York Times]

(Photo: Getting Smart)

Betabeat had just settled in for a hot Friday night date with the Internet when a friend sent us an email with the subject line, "!!!". Enclosed in the body was a link to a Reddit Ask me Anything featuring none other than our childhood idol Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Mr. Nye is somewhat of a Reddit folk hero, a noted target of nostalgic awe whose esteem on Reddit may be eclipsed only by the swag-as-hell physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. An AMA from Bill Nye has been a long awaited Reddit event. The fact that it's happening on a Friday night is also probably of no consequence to the majority of Redditors (this reporter included).

So what did we discover from the illustrious Mr. Nye that Betabeat didn't get around to asking him in our Bryant Park interview? A lot about bowties, obviously.

The AMA is still currently taking place, and Redditors are falling all over themselves for a chance to express how much influence Mr. Nye exerted on their childhoods. "I would just like to say on my behalf and I'm sure many other Redditors, that you played a very important role in shaping our minds and helping us grow and learn as children," wrote a user named "ratajewie" (oh-ho!), who literally ended their sentiment with a heart emoticon.

For his part, Mr. Nye talked about a lot of the same stuff he did when we interviewed him: the Curiosity Rover landing on Mars, the importance of discussing climate change and that "Science is the best idea humans have had." He also hinted at the idea of launching a revamped Science Guy series produced only for the web, coyly teasing, "Stay tuned ;-)."

As for the bowties, Mr. Nye is quite the collector. "When you see one you like, just buy it," he wrote of his affair with neck accouterments. "If it's good lookin', someone is right behind you ready to snap it up. I find them at Nordstrom (the store and Rack)....Right now, I'm diggin' the slimline with arrow points. Ahh...."

Our favorite answer, however, had to be when Mr. Nye exploded Reddit's collective mind by answering a question about what he talks about when hanging out with Mr. Tyson.

"Astrophysics, the business of television, baseball, wine, and women," Mr. Nye quipped.

"This is the best answer possible," replied one user, while rubbing the stars from his eyes.

(Photo: WN)

The Reddit AMA (or "ask me anything") is a free-for-all question and answer session where big names duke it out with anonymous users masked by handles like "testees_testees_123." It can be delightfully informative, but also delightfully weird. Some even morph into uncomfortable grilling sessions, as was the case with Woody Harrelson's AMA, which quickly devolved into a game of rape accusations.

Fab CEO Jason Goldberg took to Reddit yesterday for an AMA following the news that the company had raised $105 million, and while his experience wasn't nearly as torturous as Mr. Harrelson's, Redditors certainly didn't cut him any slack.

Some questioned Fab's members-only strategy. The model, Mr. Goldberg argued, "led to more than 5 million members signing up in the first year to Fab. We are going to be removing the login requirement in just a few weeks."

One Redditor took issue with Fab's incessant emails: "Why won't you stop emailing me?"

"Change your preferences," quipped Mr. Goldberg.

Another was angry he couldn't shop on the site at work due to its occasional NSFW nature. "Can you stop having vibrators on the front page of your site?" he implored.

Mr. Goldberg copped to making a pretty penny off of swanky sex toys. "Are vibrators really that risque?" he asked. "I mean, we've sold tens of thousands of them. They're well designed and clearly in demand." A very modern man, that Jason Goldberg.

Other Redditors complained about the site's slow servers, while others were nicer, congratulating him on the funding and asking for advice from the successful CEO. Unfortunately, a lot of the more positive questions didn't get any upvotes, and were relegated to the bottom of the thread. But to his credit, Mr. Goldberg was kind enough to answer almost all of them.

The minefield nature of the AMA encompasses the joy of Reddit, though: you never know what kind of interactions might emerge.

Sadly, Mr. Goldberg's AMA only got 25 upvotes.

Hang on, we're popping popcorn.

It's now something of a celebrity rite of passage, as well as a downright pleasant way to while away an afternoon. But while it's perfectly delightful to see Woody Harrelson faceplant at Q&A, we've noticed that there are several interesting requests piling up, just aching to become hours of entertainment. In fact, here are a few we'd officially approve and would please like to see.

1. Someone who won at McDonald's Monopoly

If only to provide an excuse to continue buying the hash browns.

2. A COPS cameraman

We'd also like to request cameramen from Jerry Springer, Real Housewives of New Jersey, and Planet Earth.

3. "Someone who had sex with a hot girl in their area as a result of clicking on an ad on a porn website"

Though we rather doubt that such a human being exists.

4. Someone who knows Kim Jong Un from his European sojourn 

Also, we'd like some pictures of him looking at major landmarks.

5. Scumbag Steve

Hey, he showed up to ROFLcon.

6. One of Michelle Bachmann's foster kids

Admit it, you're curious.

7. Someone who left a band, which then hit it big 

We know you're out there and probably a redditor.

We're waiting.

AMA's Newest Star, Louis CK.

Louis CK's had a pretty unlikely career: After a bunch of failed television shows, the man commonly known as the comedian's comedian finally had a hit with his latest—Louie, on FX—when he was given the creative autonomy to do what he wants with it. It's all too fitting, then, that he's taken today to Reddit's famous AMA (or: Ask Me Anything) forum, about as likely an unlikely viral success as Louis CK himself.

He opened the thread with a typically self-deprecating, nice little shill:

Hello. I have zero idea what is about to happen. I'll answer as many questions as I can. I'm sure I don't have to mention that if you go to http://www.louisck.com you can buy my latest standup special "Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater for 5 dollars via paypal. You don't have to join paypal. The movie is DRM free and is available worldwide. It's all new material that has not been in a special or on my show and will never be performed again and it's not available anywhere else. I'm sure I don't need to mention any of that so I won't bother. Oops. Hi.

In the event you didn't notice, the URL reads:

hi_im_louis_ck_and_this_is_a_thing

One user asked him about the aforementioned creative autonomy with his show. He responded:

I got it by demanding it and refusing to do the show any other way at all and by having the leverage that I was completely willing to walk away without doing the show and by agreeing to an extremely low budget so that they could offset the risk of giving me this freedom becuase they are risking less money...yeah I do the whole thign. On season 1 I had an editor and we shared it about half. But season two i edited without any help. It was fucking hard. and yes, i sit at the macbook and just put it together from start frame to finish.

That is cool. It keeps getting better. One user responded:

That's insane. You're a talented motherfucker.

To which Louis CK replied in kind:

shut up.

It's still going down over at Reddit. Get in on the fun.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

(Twitter)

One of the spokespeople behind the Anonymous Twitter account hosted an "ask me anything" session on Reddit yesterday, during which the hacktivist rep talked Mexican cartels, Occupy Wall Street and various #ops around the world. Anonymous captured the public's imagination and inspired fear with stunts like temporarily taking down the websites of large corporations and taking over Rupert Murdoch's The Sun, at the same time laying claim to high-profile hacks such as the filching of credit card information from Playstation users. But the group isn't as all-powerful as the FBI seems to fear.

"How do you think hackers within 'Anonymous' compare to those hackers employed by governments to carry out strategic hacks?" one Redditor asked. "Anonymous members are so often branded as script kiddies."

"We don't think they compare at all," the Anonymous rep answered. "Usually, most of the times, you will not find any high profile hacking skills within Anonymous. For a reason: It's not needed. Anonymous, basically, is a very loose bunch of random Internet people. Few of them are hackers."

There you have it, folks. Anonymous isn't a group of hackers--their choice of attack is always to flood websites with queries until the target gets overloaded.

"But," Anonymous continued, "Poke them hard enough and they might show you some wizard stuff (hbgary). But this is done by very few people. The masses just cheer and become inspired. To do better stuff. It's why we'll win."

However, Redditors who visited the site today note the subreddit is still there, subscribers in place. "As you have noticed IAmA is still around," Mr. 32bites wrote. "This is mostly due to the fact that i feared retalitation, while at work today I received a number of phone calls from people telling me that they hated my guts, trying to buy the subreddit from me, and a number of people trying to get in to different accounts of mine with the password reset tools."

He passed the reins to another user, karmanaut. Manager Erik Martin managed the changeover. "The creator wanted to shut it down but the outcry and mods talked him down," he told Betabeat in an email. "It's back to relative normalcy now."

Outstanding requests for IAmAs include actor Michael C. Hall, "family member of a porn star," and Billy West, who is the voice of Zoidberg on Futurama.

Getty Images

A year ago the fiery Democrat who represents Brooklyn and Queens famously told The Observer, “I follow Twitter for the Tea Party and just show up to fuck with them."

These days Rep. Weiner is getting way more proactive. Peep today's agenda:

2:30 Twitter Town Hall

3:30 Facebook Town Hall

4:30 Live Chat on Daily Kos

5:30 "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit

The man is an unstoppable social media dynamo. Redditors are already flooding his AMA page with bike lane screeds. Hope he's not worn out running between all these town halls. Check back at 5:30pm for his answers.