Reddit has announced that it will shut down Reddit Talk, its live audio conversation feature, on March 21. In an announcement post, the company says it made the decision because “supporting Talk in the short term requires significant resources — more than we anticipated.” The company will also close the “Happening Now” page, which exists to help you find active Talks and Live Chats.
Talk was announced in April 2021, a time when audio chat room app Clubhouse seemed like a big deal and other social networks rushed to copy its features. The reason why it’s now being discontinued is apparently because the third-party audio provider Reddit used for the service is also shutting down. According to his post, the company doesn’t want to deal with that while also trying to simplify its core platform and improve infrastructure, an effort chief product officer Pali Bhat just discussed on Decoder.
Beginning March 21, users will be able to download archives of Talks hosted after September 1, 2022, and have until June 1 to do so. The company says there will be more details about downloading closer to the closing date.
While Reddit says audio has a place in its goal to “become the de facto home for communities,” it doesn’t give any timeline on when audio features or even Talk itself will reappear.
The shutdown news comes as Reddit launches other features to help compete with video platforms like TikTok. That includes working on separate video and text feeds, allowing people to focus on one form of content.
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