Reddit is practically heading to a new direction with the possible addition of certain features that would make it similar to social media sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The chief executive officer of the popular internet forum, Steve Huffman, has revealed that Reddit is planning to host more content from its users, such as video clips and images, the BBC has learned.
And just like YouTube, Reddit will most likely prioritize its members who produce their own original content. "We have a lot of communities on Reddit that produce original content. Basically prioritising the content producers will be a direction of ours for the next little while," the 32-year-old CEO said.
The new features were added in an attempt to streamline the site and increase revenue, explained the product team of Reddit. Currently, the site has over 230 million monthly users and its popularity is growing internationally.
Despite several management issues and controversies it faced in the recent years, Reddit really appears to be cleaning up its act and improving for users, according to Slate. Some improvements include in-house image hosting process.
Reddit users will no longer need to link the photos they uploaded on other image hosting sites like Photobucket or Imgur because the site seeks to introduce its own in-house image hosting. Aside from ease-of-use, this feature will give Reddit more control over content published on its site by its users.
"We're in an incredibly fortunate position given how massive and influential Reddit already is, but we look around every day and we're not content because we still have a lot more work to do," Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian said.
The announcement of these plans came amid the backlash Huffman received online after saying in an TNW Conference interview on May 26 that his website knows all of its users' darkest secrets, as per JOE.
Huffman said at the time that Reddit definitely knows its users' interest, including those that social media users do not publicly share on Facebook.
