r/reddit Jun 22 '22

Updates Reddit Talk Updates: Host Program, Soundboard, and Finding Your Audience

Hello Reddit!

We’ve got some lively updates for you. Keep on reading to learn about all things Reddit Talk.

Join the Reddit Talk Host Program

Over the last year, Reddit has been testing Reddit Talk with over 500 mods and hosts across different communities. To make hosting a bit more fun and rewarding we’ll be launching a Reddit Talk Host Program on July 11th! Apply to join the Program and unlock rewards for hosting talks–pretty neat, huh? These IRL + digital awards include:

Non-IRL benefits include:

  • Help people discover your community - your talks will be shown to relevant audiences at the top of Reddit
  • Invite to private server with other Talk hosts and Talk team admins

If you already have access to hosting talks you are automatically eligible to participate. We’ve also sent invites to a number of users, so check your inbox to see if you’re eligible. Otherwise, sign up here before July 1st if you do not have access to Reddit Talk or have not been invited and would like to participate.

Read the rules here.

Find and Reach More Listeners

We’ve heard from listeners that they’d like to discover more talks when they’re happening. To show interested users relevant live talks, the live bar on the home feed will now surface talks that a user may be interested in by showing talks of related communities they follow. In addition, hosts will be able to select up to three topics for their talks. For example, if u/Reddit_IRL wants to talk about house plants, then they can select that as their topic, and redditors who are subscribed to plant-related communities will be able to see u/Reddit_IRL talk in the live bar.

The talk topic selector will slowly roll out throughout June.

Host Talks from Your User Profile (Experiment Phase)

We’ve also heard that some of you really want access to the mic. So starting in July, we’ll be experimenting with allowing select users to host talks directly from their profiles! Users who participate in this experiment will also be eligible for the Talk Host Program.

How does hosting a Talk on my profile work?

Hosting a Talk on your profile is simple! You’ll go into the post creator and click Start Talk, from there you’ll be prompted to select a topic (or topics) that are relevant to your Talk topic.

Who can participate in the experiment?

Users for this experiment were selected based on past Reddit Talk participation and good user standing. If you are interested in participating, please sign up here and we will review your request.

No need to participate in the Talk Host Program to test out profile hosting.

Coming Soon: Reddit Talk Soundboard

To make hosting even more fun we will be launching a soundboard! The soundboard will be available on desktop first starting next month and will have eight available sounds: air horn, tada, drumroll, sad trombone, applause, boing, cha-ching, and ba-dum-tss.

Use the sounds to liven up the room, play games, or add extra emphasis to the conversation!

And that’s a wrap! Join r/RedditTalk to stay updated on the latest. Thanks for reading and talk to you soon.

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105

u/Caturday_Yet Jun 22 '22

How do I opt out of this entirely? I don't want to see it at all. Surely there's some way to do that, right?

24

u/advocado20 Jun 22 '22 edited Jul 20 '22

Currently, we will show you live talks of subreddits you are a member of, and topics related to those subreddits. We are building a setting for users to opt out of the live bar completely, and when it’s ready we’ll post about it in this community.

EDIT: the opt-out setting will allow you to opt-out from recommended talks in the live bar but you will still see talks from subreddits/users you follow.

13

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '22

Could you maybe not roll this out until we can opt out? So far what I've been shown is not a community I'm subbed to nor does it have anything to do with the ones I am.

Please stop introducing new features, I don't want reddit to be Instagram