Reddit Enters The Live Streaming World
Live Streaming has become more and more popular over the last few years.
The live streaming world has been dominated by just a few major players (Twitch, YouTube and Mixer). These live streaming websites started as a place for viewers to watch and interact with their favorite internet personalities as they play video games.
Viewers would log in to the website, choose which game they wanted to watch, and then choose which stream they would tune into.
In more recent years, websites like Twitch added sections such as, “talk shows and podcasts,” “music and performing arts,” “just chatting with viewers,” and many more categories unrelated to gaming.
Mixer.com is relatively the same as Twitch, but it is Microsoft's take on live streaming. YouTube’s version of live streaming, while similar in function to Twitch and Mixer, has a different focus. It still has gaming content, but it is not necessarily focused on it. Their live stream content ranges from presidential press conferences, to the recent SpaceX rocket launch and even live musical performances.
Companies that have entered the live stream space have been wildly successful and will continue to be. However, these live streaming companies are mainly for use on a computer in a browser.
Now, mobile social media platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, have caught wind of these companies’ successes and have decided to take a shot at it.
Instagram now offers Instagram live where a user can stream their front or back facing camera while viewers can interact with the streamer via chat and emoticons.
TikTok’s live functionality came out after Instagram live but offers the same functionality and utility as Instagram with some additions. For example, on TikTok, there is a button to donate directly to who is live streaming — similar to Twitch, YouTube or Mixer.
One of the more interesting and recent companies to enter the live stream race is Reddit.
Reddit is a versatile website that’s content is driven solely by the users. The site is split up into “subreddits” that act like communities centered around one topic or interest.
Recently, Reddit has offered users the ability to live stream, but it is different from any live streaming platform than I have seen before.
Their streaming service goes by the name of RPAN — short for “Reddit Public Access Network.” These live streamed videos will appear in a users Reddit feed and, once clicked, the user is taken to RPAN.
Here, they are shown one of the top broadcasts but can swipe to access different ones.
From my experience, what the users is shown is seemingly random, as none of the live streams related to any of the subreddits I was subscribed to.
My suspicion was confirmed from one of the employees who made the announcement about the release of RPAN. He said, “As you move further from the top broadcast, the broadcasts you see will be increasingly more random, so we encourage you to explore and vote!”
This is very different from most live streaming platforms.
I will be incredibly interested to see where Reddit goes with this new experience for its users.
