Reddit Adds New Real-Time Activity Indicators to Enhance In-App Activity
First off, Reddit's bringing its post and comment vote counts to life, with the numbers for each now updating in real-time. That could help to underline community activity, while comment counts will also now be updated as you scroll.
Reddit's also adding new typing indicators on posts whenever two or more users are typing a comment, while reading indicators will show when five or more redditors are reading any given post in-stream.
Finally, Reddit's also adding a new alert for when new comments have been added to a stream that you're in, helping you stay on top of the evolving discussion.
Reddit's been working to maximize engagement in the app by prompting more real-time interaction, with the platform also adding both text and audio chat rooms within subreddits to spark more community-building activity.
The idea is that by facilitating deeper connection within already engaged Reddit communities, that can make the app a more significant element in people's social lives, and make Reddit a more sticky platform, keeping users coming back more often. Reddit's key strength is in community engagement, with highly active and engaged users interacting in the app, and by enhancing that through more direct, more immediate connection, that could help to boost usage, and solidify its place as a key connective app, as opposed to an aggregator site for memes and links.
Reddit's userbase is growing, now at 52 million daily actives, and while it did take a hit last year, as a result of a crackdown on some of the more controversial subreddits, its overall usage levels have remained steady, and it's also been working to build better ad offerings and tools to help brands tap into these groups and discussions. If small pushes like these can add a little more to that, and increase user time spent in-app, they could well prove to be of value as it continues to optimize its platform in various ways.