reddit Community Spreads Holiday Cheer With Third Annual Secret Santa Gift Exchange

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Today reddit is announcing its third annual online Secret Santa. The program, started by the independent group redditgifts, was officially acquired by Advance Publications after the success of last year's Secret Santa with over 17,000 participants in 90 different countries across the globe. Sign-ups for this year's Secret Santa begin today, November 1st and will remain open until November 25th. Participants are then matched up and invited to use their best online sleuthing skills to choose an appropriate present to send by December 12th.  When participants receive their present they will post photos and videos to redditgifts to be enjoyed by all.

"We have some really exciting stuff going on this year," said Dan McComas, founder of redditgifts. "We are going for the official Guinness World Records® title for The Largest Online Secret Santa Game!"

The reddit Secret Santa has quickly become one of the most popular moments in time for many reddit users, and this year's Secret Santa looks to build on the success of the past two years. Participants could even find themselves on the receiving end of gifts this season from some surprise "celebrity" participants.

In an effort to spread goodwill and holiday spirit across the world reddit is allowing non-reddit users the chance to join in the fun. Typically, participants were required to have a reddit account before sign-ups began, but this year non-reddit members will be given brand new accounts in order to participate.

"We're dedicated to making this the largest and best Secret Santa the world has ever seen," said Erik Martin, General Manager of reddit. "While the reddit Secret Santa will always belong to the community, we want to make this year's initiative as inclusive as possible, even if that means some participants are new to reddit."

While the reddit Secret Santa is of an online nature, this year reddit is encouraging local reddit communities to hold meetups on or around December 17th to spread holiday cheer in person. redditgifts will be holding their own meetup on the 17th in San Francisco.

For information on the 2011 Secret Santa, redditgifts, or how to set up a meetup, please visit redditgifts.com.

For media inquiries, please contact reddit at [email protected].

About reddit

reddit is a social news website where the registered users submit content, and other users then vote the submission "up" or "down," which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the site's pages and front page.

reddit was originally founded by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. It was acquired by Conde Nast Publications in October 2006. In September 2011, reddit was split from Conde Nast, and now operates as a subsidiary of Conde Nast's parent company, Advance Publications.

SOURCE reddit