Discord announced Tuesday that it is making a series of changes to expand its service beyond the gaming community. The company says the change is one that its users have requested, as Discord has become just another tool for “daily communication.”
“Games are what brought many of you to the platform, and we will always be grateful for that,” reads a blog post by Discord CEO Jason Citron and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy. “As time went by, many of you realized and expressed that you simply wanted a place designed to hang out and talk in the comfort of your own communities and friends. I wanted a place to have genuine conversations and spend quality time with people, whether it’s catching up, learning something, or sharing ideas. “
The company has launched a redesigned website with the slogan “Your Place to Talk”. The new site describes Discord as appropriate for school clubs, playgroups, art communities, or just groups of friends.
Discord outlined a series of actions he plans to take to make his platform more user-friendly for non-gamers. They include improving “the new user onboarding experience,” increasing voice and video chat capabilities, and continuing to invest in “reliability and performance as our top priority.” Discord says it made the jokes and references built into the interface less game-specific. And the company has created a “Discord Safety Center” that summarizes its data practices, rules, safety tips, and explanations for parents and teachers.
Discord’s audience continues to grow, especially as the coronavirus pandemic has increased demand for voice and video chat services. The company, which primarily competes with workplace chat apps like Slack, announced that it now has more than 100 million monthly active users who spend 4 billion minutes of conversation each day. Discord has also secured additional funding of $ 100 million, which he says “will help accelerate our investment in the community, new features and the business.”
Discord has made other efforts to reach a broader audience in recent months. On June 19, the company announced a set of initiatives to combat hate speech on its platform. Those include committing to audit the ways in which their users spread racism; developing new software to manage abuse; diversifying your staff; contributing to organizations focused on racial justice; and offering personalized services to community organizers and activists.
Discord has also placed a greater emphasis on its voice chat platform in recent times. The company said in April that it had seen 50 percent growth in voice users in the US since the early 2020s. The company introduced a beta noise suppression feature as part of a partnership with Krisp.ai. It detects and eliminates background noise. voices can be heard more clearly, a feature Microsoft also announced for Teams last month.
In March, Discord increased the number of users who can simultaneously watch a live stream from 10 to 50, also citing the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in live streaming and video chat. Citron noted that the feature would be useful for teachers who teach remotely or collaborate with coworkers. Discord stated in a tweet that it would maintain the upper limit “as long as it is most needed.”
