Clubhouse must be on to something because every other social media platform is launching their own version of their audio-only live voice chats. Twitter, Discord, Facebook, LinkedIn, Spotify and Telegram have similar features in development, but the latest company to join the trend is Reddit with its recently announced “Reddit Talks”.
Reddit Talks will allow subreddits to host live audio discussions open to everyone in the community. During the initial testing phase, only moderators of a subreddit can host talks, but any user on Android or iOS can listen. Conversations in the future.
In the official announcement thread, Reddit says the Talk feature is for “whichever community wants to use it” and mentions “Q&As, AMAs, talks, sports radio-style discussions, community feedback sessions or simply a place to hang out,” such as suggestions for how to use Talks.
We haven't yet seen how someone will start a talk, but we can understand how the interface works in the screenshots of the app that Reddit posted.
Like most other Clubhouse-type chat rooms, Reddit Talks lists all users in the room by their role – speakers and moderators are listed at the top of the window, followed by all participating users. Hosts can tap a user to invite them to speak, and there are also options to mute, remove, and ban users.
The Talks interface is customizable, featuring unique avatars, reaction emojis, and a selection of background colors. Listeners can tap the hand icon to “raise their hand” and request speaking privileges, and a notification will appear if you are invited to speak, along with the option to accept or decline.
The talks will undoubtedly change Reddit, but the feature will be enabled once it's live, so communities that don't want to allow the talks can ignore them. Subreddit moderators who want to test Talks early can join the waitlist here. Reddit will collect feedback from participating communities after initial testing, so we expect to see feature changes when it's widely released.
