Reddit adds location tagging, which isn't a very Reddit-like thing to do
Alert Reddit users: you can now tag posts with your location.
Thanks to a new partnership with Foursquare—yes, the check-in app you may have used in the late 2000s—Reddit posts, published via the mobile app, can include a geotag that's particular to a specific venue or as broad as a country.
It's all optional, a simple way to add context on where you are if you so choose. Nearby locations are shown in a drop-down menu if the smartphone owner has location services enabled.
This isn't the first big partnership for Foursquare, which now likes to refer to itself as a location intelligence company. It also powers the location tags of Snapchat (for geofilters), Pinterest, Twitter, and Uber.
So this deal isn't that crazy for Foursquare itself. The partnership is "increasing validation [for us] with more adoption from leading players," said David Ban, Foursquare director of business development.
But it's quite interesting when you look at Reddit. The so-called "front page of the internet" hasn't been the most innovative when it comes inserting additional information other than text. For awhile, it relied on Imgur for image hosting. Mobile wasn't really a priority.
The forum-based site is primarily anonymous, so the location options breaks the norm. But the addition could be valuable to advertisers, who have been quite resistant to spend on Reddit due to lack of data and concerns over inappropriate content.
With this Foursquare deal, Reddit has introduced something that is mobile-only and data-rich. Still, it's optional and access to the data is limited. At launch, Reddit users cannot search for posts by location. The information is only accessible by individual post, for now.
Even Foursquare bowed to the deal being bigger for the social platform. "Reddit’s been busy making updates to improve their users’ experience, and ours is the latest and (we think) the most fun," Foursquare's blog post on the update reads. "Just as Snapchatters love geo-filters and Pinterest users go wild for photo maps, now the Reddit community can quickly note where their story takes place."
Topics Social Media Reddit
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
