Twitter introduced what it's calling Communities, a new Reddit-like section that as of today is both invite-only and starting out with just four pages, but there’s plans to expand the service widespread later on after this initial trial run. 

Communities looks and feels a lot like Reddit, where only users of a specific Community can submit content, like and comment (or in this case, subtweet or reply) on other users posts all without interferring with your regular Twitter page and everybody else's timeline. 

At the moment, Twitter is only starting out with four Communities as follows:

  • #AstroTwitter 
  • #DogTwitter 
  • #SkincareTwitter 
  • #SoleFood 

They should all be pretty self-explanatory except for #SoleFood, which is a place for sneakerheads to chat incase you didn't pick up on the pun. 

Currently, Twitter is manually approving Community moderators, but once the company looks to flip the switch on a widespread release, it’ll probably work similar to Reddit's system where current moderators can appoint new ones. 

At the moment, however, absolutely anybody can submit an easy request to create a new Community as long as you already have a Twitter account. If you submit a request, Twitter says they’ll review your suggestion and "take further action if appropriate". 

Just days ago, Twitter announced Super Followers, a new way for certain members to charge users for paywalled Tweets. 

Now, with Communities being an invite-only service at the moment, it's clear the company is looking to expand into a new operating style where lots of engagement time occurs in hyper-specific, private and mostly exclusive areas of the internet. That's worked pretty well for OnlyFans and Reddit, so why not Twitter?