Reddit is about to launch profile pages, turning the community-driven website into something like Facebook and Twitter.
Presumably in a bid to appeal to a wider audience, the company is adding a touch of what the modern world has to offer to an old-fashioned message board, initially rolling out the update to a few Redditors to test the waters.
What Reddit's Profile Pages Look Like
Complete with an avatar, a cover photo, and a feed, the profile pages really do seem something from Facebook or Twitter, not to mention there are now a Follow button and a bio portion too.
Announced via a post on /r/modnews, Redditors will soon be allowed to make posts on their profiles, which will show up on their feeds along with their posts on other communities. Meanwhile, other Redditors can't make posts on someone else's profile page, but they can leave comments on the user posts.
Also, their posts will turn up on their followers' front pages, and according to Reddit, these will be "following the same 'hot' algorithms as everything else."
So far, there are three users that have this feature: accounts of cofounder Alexis Ohanian, well-known resident British painter Hector Janse van Rensburg, and League of Legends creator Riot Games.
Before these profile pages, popular users on Reddit were left with no choice but to make a community of their own to give their fans a way to stay on top of their content. Reddit says that some of the content makers are having trouble with "finding the right place to post their content," implying that having a dedicated subreddit isn't working.
Redditors React
As mentioned earlier, a Redditor having their own community just doesn't seem to cut it, with others chiming in with a similar tune.
"Making a subreddit for yourself is clunky at best, and perceived as narcissistic at worst. It seems like the admins want to encourage original content creators to publish directly to [Reddit], and this is a great way to make that experience smoother," user astrawnomore says.
However, a lot of Redditors aren't liking the idea of these profile pages, saying that it's essentially a way to circumvent the self-promotion spam policy of the website.
"Essentially turning [Reddit] into Twitter where someone is talking at you, versus a forum where stuff comes in through a community filter ... This sounds like an absolutely terrible idea thought up by someone who doesn't understand [Reddit]," user rebbsitor posts.
Boiling Things Down
Reddit appears to be taking a page from Facebook and Twitter as evidenced by what the new profile pages are bringing to the table, but that's not the case based on Reddit's explanation — just providing content creators on Reddit a haven where they can grow and showcase their work. More than that, it's also arguably a way to get more people to sign up on the website.
What do you think of this update and how it'll affect Reddit as a whole? Feel free to hit us up in the comments section below and let us know.
