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Reddit said its new platform will help third-party developers who currently work with ‘limited resources and ad-hoc support’.
Reddit is working on platform to support third-party developers making bots and apps for the site.
The social media site has opened a waiting list for the beta version of its developer platform for those who want early access.
While Reddit is developing its own tools, it said that users may want to develop other ways to engage with communities and that moderators in particular have developed numerous tools and bots to lighten their workload and improve subreddit pages.
Reddit also mentioned examples of useful third-party software on the site, such as a bot that sends a direct message to remind users about events, or a tool that detects Twitter links and puts the contents of the tweet on Reddit.
The company said third-party developers on the site currently operate as “siloed resources” for certain communities and work with “limited resources and ad-hoc support”. It said its new platform aims to change these issues.
“The developer platform team is focused on creating offerings that improve support, flexibility and performance for our third-party developers,” Reddit said in a blogpost.
“We are excited to work with our community to build apps that improve the Reddit experience and ensure those extensions are discoverable and trustworthy.”
Reddit said the platform will help developers find resources, tools and get the best answers to their questions easier. The company added that it aims to maintain alignment with those who are building tools around Reddit’s “guiding principles” and “broader values”.
“Building tools and products that create simpler, richer and more relevant experiences for redditors has always been at the forefront of everything we do,” the company said. “As noted earlier this year by our chief product officer, Pali Bhat, supporting and working with developers will only make Reddit more extensible and make using Reddit better for everyone.”
In June, Reddit acquired machine learning platform Spell to help make content more relevant to its users and communities using AI tech.
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