When it comes to conducting business on the internet, copying others' features is as common as copy-pasting.
Facebook copied Snapchat, and so did Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube and lots more. YouTube copied Instagram, which in turn, copied TikTok. Facebook, Twitter and some others have also copied Clubhouse.
The list goes on as more features are introduced, and others in the competition see the features worthy to be copied.
Reddit is the "front page of the internet."
While it is kind of left way back in terms of features and functionality, people use the platform to find contents, and not people.
This is why Reddit has been shy in adopting others' features.
As users post new things and engage in the communities, that is all that matters to Reddit.
But regardless, when it does copy others' feature, it is making sure that it's worth its effort.
This time, Reddit announced in a blog post that it has introduced a 'Discover' tab, which is pretty similar to Instagram's Explore feature.
By making it official on Reddit's iOS and Android apps, users can find new contents and communities they may be interested in.
This feature here curates curates pictures, GIFs, and videos in a scrollable grid taken from other communities Reddit thinks its users will find them interesting.
"The corpus of content and communities on Reddit is pretty vast," said Jason Costa, Reddit’s Director of Product for Community and Content.
Costa described Reddit as traditionally having a heavy emphasis on text-based expression, yet Costa believes that there was an opportunity to showcase the rich multimedia content within communities as context.
"In particular, there’s not really a place on Reddit where you can go and easily discover great video content, great imagery content, great GIF content," Costa said.
According to Reddit, the Discover feed is populated using the types of contents users have spend the most time viewing, as well as recommendations based on subreddits they follow.
The Discover tab replaces the Communities/Subscriptions tab in both iOS and Android as the second icon on the bottom, represented by a compass icon.
"We think the community drawer is a real improvement over the existing tab," added Costa.
Costa is certain that the feature will be useful.
"I personally think users are going to discover and join more communities as a result of this. And I think the old and new Redditors alike are gonna find really interesting and compelling content that resonates with them." as explained by Costa said.
According to tests conducted internally by Reddit, users who tried the Discover tab subscribed to at least one additional community vs. those that didn’t use it.
And this, said Costa, is "exactly what we were hoping for.”
Costa explained that “they would discover, and... traverse the breadth of the corpus of content communities on the site. So you know, that alone, as a signal, gets us really excited for you know, what old and new users are going to do with [it]."
In many ways, Discover is allowing Reddit to showcase its vast catalog of memes and GIFs and videos that are shared every day, but aren’t always front and center in the app, and aren't discoverable by users.
While much of Reddit remains text-based, the Discover feed should help Reddit become more social, and mainstream, in which it could draw in users who would rather aimlessly scroll rather than read.
The Discover feed is the first feature that has been added to the Reddit app in more than two years.