To the uninitiated, Reddit looks like a mess — text links, comment threads, points, upvotes, downvotes. At best, posts seem contextless — at worst, totally random.But spend some quality time with “The Front Page of the Internet,” and you’ll find it’s an essential resource, a self-correcting marketplace of ideas that’s nearly impervious to marketers.Simply put, Reddit is a message board wherein users submit links. What differentiates it from a real-time information network like Twitter is that the stream of content is curated by the community. Items of value are “upvoted,” and those deemed unworthy are “downvoted.” This determines a post’s position on the site, and items that hit the front page are seen by hundreds of thousands of people consequently, sending boatloads of traffic to the linked website.