EdgeXplore

Clubhouse must be onto something, because every other social media platform is launching its own version of their live, audio-only voice chats. Twitter, Discord, Facebook, LinkedIn, Spotify, and Telegram all have similar features in development, but the latest company to join the trend is Reddit with its newly-announced “Reddit Talks.”

Reddit Talks will let subreddits hold live audio discussions that are open to everyone in the community. During the early test phase, only a subreddit’s moderators can host Talks, but any user on Android or iOS can listen in. Hosts can assign speaking privileges to other listeners during a Talk, and “Trusted community members” will be able to host their own Talks in the future.

In the official announcement thread, Reddit says the Talk feature is for “whatever communities want to use it for,” and mentions “Q&As, AMAs, lectures, sports-radio-style discussions, community feedback sessions, or simply a place to hang out,” as suggestions for how to use Talks.

We have yet to see how one will go about starting a Talk, but we can glean how the interface works from the in-app screenshots Reddit posted.

Credit: Reddit

Like most other Clubhouse-like chat rooms, Reddit Talks lists all users in the room by their roles—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 for muting, removing, and banning 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 ask for speaking privileges, and a notification will pop up if you’re invited to speak, along with the option to accept or decline.

Talks will undoubtedly change Reddit, but the feature will be opt-in once it’s live, so communities who don’t want to allow 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 the initial tests, so we expect to see changes to the features by the time it’s widely released.