Reddit released their new live audio room feature ‘Reddit Talk’ on April 19. The new feature aims to allow users to host AMAs, Q&As, lectures, sports-radio-style discussions, community feedback sessions and more.
Coming soon to a community near you. pic.twitter.com/Ikvd5zr3qi
— Reddit (@reddit) April 19, 2021
The speculations around Reddit’s new audio feature began in early April with a report from Mashable. Reddit confirmed the reports via their blog site:
“Currently, you can use text threads, images, videos, chats, and live streams to have conversations and hang out with people in your communities. While these are great mediums, there are other times where having a live audio talk may be more useful or, frankly, more fun. So we want to partner with you to explore a new way for community members to communicate with each other.”
Reddit Blog
Reddit Talk seems to provide a similar user experience and design to Clubhouse. For example, Clubhouse users can also click on the ‘raise a hand’ icon if they wish to speak. Reddit Talk will initially allow only subreddit moderators to invite users, to host sessions, to mute or ban users in the chat and to eliminate speakers during the live audio event. Moderators will also be given the opportunity to choose a co-host for their audio sessions.
Participants in the live stream who wish to listen in on a conversation can interact using emojis and can also change their Reddit avatar to fit in line with topic conversations.
The announcement comes days after Clubhouse revealed that they will be rolling out their Android app in the coming months. The launch of the Clubhouse app has caused a ripple effect across the social media industry – with multiple platforms developing their own versions of the platform.
Reddit’s Product Lead for Creators highlighted the importance of live audio discussions on their platform:
“We believe that there is more to offer here by letting users have real-time live voice discussions with others in their communities — maybe talking about a sporting event while it’s on TV or listening to a casual chat or AMA with field experts. Yes, there are a few different platforms diving into live audio right now. Our hope is that by announcing this early with a community-first design, we will see engaging conversations hosted first by moderators, who we’ll be working with closely to ensure we’re creating a unique, supportive, and positive user experience”.
Join the waitlist here to get a chance to access Reddit Talk.