Reddit announced on Thursday it’s introducing a set of new tools to make it easier for users to participate on its platform. The features are designed to help users find communities, ensure their posts don’t break any rules, and understand how to contribute across the social network.
Combined, the features are meant to enhance the Redditor posting experience by making it easier to contribute posts, particularly for newer users who may not understand how Reddit works or where to post.
For starters, the company says it will start helping users find the right community for their audience with “Community Suggestions.”
If a user has created a post and is unsure which community to post it in, a “Pick a Community” dropdown will now offer relevant subreddit recommendations based on the post’s content. This, Reddit believes, will make it easier for users to connect with the right audience when creating a new post.
Another new “Post Check” feature will help users determine if their post might be breaking any of the subreddit rules so they can update it before publishing. The idea behind this feature is to help users who may otherwise have accidentally broken rules and had their post removed.
Users can access the tool by clicking the wand icon in the lower right-hand corner of the post composer. After that, the tool will highlight any content that may have broken a rule.
Reddit is also rolling out a tool that will allow users to repost content that was removed to a different subreddit. When a user’s post is removed due to community rules, they will see a new prompt under that post that will help them repost the content to a suggested alternative subreddit.
Plus, when users select a community to post in, but don’t meet that community’s criteria, Reddit will now offer recommendations for how they can contribute to that community. For instance, Reddit may notify you that you’re unable to contribute to a community because you don’t meet the minimum criteria for karma (an online reputation score), and that you need to earn more by posting or commenting across Reddit.
In addition, Reddit improved its “Post Insights” feature to allow users to see how well their posts are doing. Now, you can see the dates related to your views, upvotes, shares, and more.
With this information, Reddit users will be able to understand what performs well to help refine their approach for future posts.
All the new features are available starting today on mobile and desktop to users worldwide, the company says.
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There’s a new Bluesky app in the works from a popular developer of iOS applications. Tapbots, the company behind the popular Mastodon client Ivory, born out of its earlier efforts with Tweetbot (RIP), is readying a new app called Phoenix, designed for Bluesky’s growing social network of over 32 million users.
In a post on Bluesky, the company shared its website teasing the new app, which is expected to launch sometime later this summer.
On its site, Tapbots clarified that its work on a Bluesky client doesn’t mean it’s abandoning its efforts in the fediverse, also known as the open social web. However, Ivory’s development will temporarily slow as the new efforts are underway.
Ivory, which launched in 2023, brought back Tweetbot’s look and feel and several of its features to offer an alternative to Mastodon’s official social app, an open source, decentralized alternative to larger platforms like X. As a federated app, Ivory is integrated with ActivityPub, the protocol powering a host of federated social apps including not only Mastodon, but also PeerTube, Pixelfed, Meta’s Threads, Flipboard, and others.
Bluesky, meanwhile, is built on a different protocol, the AT Protocol (or atproto for short).
Since Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk and its transformation into X, many former Twitter users have moved on to other networks, including Mastodon and Bluesky. For an indie operation like Tapbots, that meant its customer base was split between two services, making it harder to generate revenue with just one app.
“… For us to continue to thrive as a company, we must support both,” Tapbots shared on its website. “Unfortunately, we can’t survive on Mastodon alone.”
The company also explains that it decided to launch a dedicated app for Bluesky users instead of combining the two networks into one app because this would offer users a better experience. Those who want to maintain a presence on both social networks will be able to take advantage of a planned cross-posting feature, it added.
Unfortunately for Mastodon users, work on Ivory will need to slow as the team works to launch Phoenix.
“It would be a lie if we said Ivory would be in full development while we are trying to get Phoenix up and running,” the website explains. “However, we did not want to start Phoenix development until after we released Ivory v2.3. Once Phoenix is out the door, development will happen concurrently and both apps will get all the huge improvements we have planned throughout the apps.”
News of Phoenix’s launch was first reported by MacStories.
Though the company has not announced Phoenix’s monetization strategy, it will likely be a subscription model similar to Ivory’s — a free app with in-app purchases for access to premium features. Currently, Ivory is $1.99 per month or $14.99 per year.
Phoenix will enter a limited public alpha phase ahead of its summer 2025 launch.
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