“We needed to make sure we tested the video experience, so we created this from the ground up with our in-house team,” says Emon Motamedi, Reddit’s product director for video. “One of the big motives for doing this was making more attachment around the content and conversations.”
Motamedi aims to how most videos on Reddit are simply YouTube links, or videos cut up into GIFs hosted by third-party media like Gfycat. This is normally a cumbersome process, and it’s contrary to fewer media savvy internet users. A significant problem is that it fractures conversation between where the content is hosted and where a user requires discussing. Usually, Motamedi says, “you go to YouTube to watch the video and you get back to Reddit to comment.” That’s not ideal. “Because our platform has the best commentaries on the internet and because it’s such a big use case for our users, we wanted to make that in-house,” he adds.
Reddit’s video tool, which will run both through its mobile app and on the desktop, will also hold a built-in GIF making tool. “This speaks to a Reddit opinion of giving creators the tools to flourish and making out of the way,” Motamedi says. “Say they register a longer cute video of their dog playing. A user can post that whole video to a subreddit, but also go after to the edit flow, create a gif, and post it to different subreddit.”
The goal, Motamedi adds, is to let users tailor videos and GIFs to special Reddit communities rather of just putting content on a third-party site and connecting it, or trying to reach a massive, anonymous public on a platform like YouTube. “It’s a way to democratize the video production process,” he says. “Right now, on other sites, a lot of videos are created with a goal of speaking to a large base of subscribers and maintaining build those subscribers.” With Reddit video, the organization hopes it will be mostly original content with a specific issue or subject matter, be it a video game highlight or cute pet GIF. The goals in place at launch will be 15-minute videos with a 1GB file size, with GIFs no higher than one minute.
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