Reddit is about to make one of its biggest changes yet.
The site will soon launch a new instant messaging feature called Reddit Chat. Unlike Reddit’s current private messaging system, Reddit Chat will allow individual users and groups to connect instantaneously much like the chat features on Facebook or other social networks.
With Reddit Chat, which will eventually replace the old PM system entirely, users will be able to swap messages, links to posts, and send stickers in real time. The feature will be limited to 1:1 conversations in the beginning, but Reddit plans to add group messaging features in the near future, and it could be a huge boon for Reddit communities who already organize on outside chat platforms like Slack and Discord.
None of that may sound particularly groundbreaking for a social site in 2017, but it could have profound implications for Reddit’s millions of users — most of whom don’t have any connection with each other outside of the site.
Reddit, which is also working on a larger site-wide redesign, is aware that its most dedicated users don’t take even the smallest changes lightly, which is why the rollout is happening so slowly.
Reddit Chat is in beta for now — only a small fraction of Reddit’s users have access to the feature as of today — but the company plans to bring chat to everyone during the first quarter of 2018. Chat will be limited to one-on-one messaging to start, but group messaging will be added later on. Eventually, the company will phase out the old PM system entirely.
That the two messaging formats will coexist side-by-side for months may seem confusing, but Reddit product manager Jason Lee says the slow rollout is necessary for the company to understand how to make chat work for all of Reddit’s disparate groups of users.
“We don’t want to replace the PM system and…
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