Reddit Rolls Out Native Video Support For Desktop, Mobile Apps

Reddit has begun rolling out native video support for its desktop and mobile websites, as well as the official Reddit apps. Reddit’s new video platform is still currently in beta, but it will become available to majority of communities that are under the “safe for work” classification.

“Reddit is home to more than 100,000 of the internet’s most passionate and engaged communities, and we want to give all of them the best tools to express themselves and engage in deeper conversations,” Reddit explained on its blog. “That’s why we’re excited to announce the extended rollout of Reddit video beta, which makes it easier than ever for redditors to capture, upload, and share videos and gifs with all their favorite communities.”

Users will be able to upload videos on Reddit with a maximum length of 15 minutes. Video formats that are currently supported are MP4 and MOV. Redditors using the official mobile apps can also upload pre-recorded videos from their gallery.

On mobile, users have the option to trim their uploaded videos. There’s also an option to convert uploaded videos into MP4 GIFs using Reddit’s native GIF converter on the desktop website. Videos uploaded to Reddit will be watchable across platforms, including desktop, iOS and Android. Reddit users can watch uploaded videos while they also comment and read through people’s responses, according to TechCrunch.

Reddit explained that it decided to launch its own video platform because sharing videos from third-party services was time-consuming for content creators. Previously, users had to copy a video’s URL and share it as a link post.

“With native video, we’ve streamlined this process dramatically, allowing both content creators and commenters to focus on the conversation taking place on Reddit. No third-party uploads, new tabs, or back arrows necessary,” Reddit said.

Right now, Reddit wants to roll out its new video platform slowly as a beta test, so that it could get enough feedback to improve its wider availability. The company also shared that it discovered that the most engaging type of videos on Reddit weren’t from popular users trying to promote their brands. Instead, Redditors were using the video platform as an extension to further engage with their Reddit communities.

The company began beta testing its own video platform back in June. At the time, only a select number of communities were able to upload video natively onto the site. Native video hosting on Reddit also arrived just over a year ago when it started native image hosting.

Although Reddit’s inclusion of native video hosting on its site might be a welcome change to content creators, it might also mean that video ads might soon be a lot more prevalent. Reddit already hosts native video ads on its site, but there’s nothing that’s stopping the company from adding support for pre-roll or mid-roll video ads, as pointed out by The Next Web.

Reddit did confirm to Variety that it’s already considering monetizing user uploaded videos in the future. “That is something we will evaluate going forward,” Reddit’s video product manager Emon Motamedi said.