YouTube Tests New Reddit-Like Community Spaces Feature For Creators and Viewers to Share Posts and Interact

Lindsey Gamble / YouTube Community Spaces

YouTube has started beta testing a new Community Spaces feature. It's a dedicated space for creators and their communities to share posts, interact, and have conversations. Users can filter posts within a Community by Top, Latest, and Creator Posts. Communities can also be public or private.

At the moment, access is available to select creators, including FroggyCrossing, but YouTube says to "stay tuned as opportunities to participate become available."

Why It Matters: With Community Spaces, YouTube brings a native experience that allows creators and their communities to connect, which is a mix of Reddit, Instagram Broadcast Channels, and Facebook Groups. It also facilitates two-way dialogue between creators and fans outside of the comment section, addressing the absence of direct messaging capabilities.

This feature could help creators strengthen their Subscription offering if YouTube were to give them the ability to paywall it, which would also eliminate the need for third-party tools like Patreon.

Community Spaces can also help creators better understand their communities by observing discussions, whether it's feedback on their content or conversations on other topics. This can inform a creator's strategy, such as identifying popular content themes or experimenting with new ideas based on community discussions.

Lastly, it's another signal of how Community Posts, YouTube's short-form post feature, have become a greater part of the platform experience. Over the past year or so, YouTube has made several updates to Community Posts, including expanding access to more creators, adding new tools like Polls, Quizzes, Filters, and Stickers, and rolling out a dedicated feed for this type of content.

Community Spaces is the latest in a growing list of updates from platforms to cater to users' desire for more intimate spaces to connect over shared interests.