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Everyone’s scrambling to create a Clubhouse clone right now, but for Discord, that makes perfect sense.
With everyone stuck at home looking for safe ways to rekindle their social lives over the past year or so, Discord’s appeal has exploded. The company cites the new behavior observed during the pandemic as inspiration for Stage Channels, a new feature that will facilitate more structured voice conversations with designated speakers and listeners.
Voice chat is already the main feature of Discord. It has been that way for years, providing gamers with a clear and seamless voice chat service that blew the functionality of in-game chat services out of the water. But there’s no denying the zeitgeist of the Clubhouse-inspired vocal events right now, even though in the end Discord was there first in many ways.
Discord says the new type of channel will be useful for things like AMAs and voice interviews, book clubs, and even karaoke. The new channels will capture the activity that’s already happening on Discord, allowing anyone running a server to host formalized conversations without having to worry about a bunch of granular user permissions stuff.
The new channel type blends in perfectly with the existing Discord vibe. Stage channels do what’s on the label, allowing anyone running a Discord to set up a speakerphone experience and use moderator tools to control who gets the mic and when. Much like Clubhouse (or Zoom), participants can raise their hands to speak. They can also slip quietly.
Stage Channels will be specific to Community Servers, which are focused on larger groups on Discord. To activate the new channel type, server owners will need to convert a channel to a community server if it isn’t already one.
Since Discord is Discord, voice event discovery won’t work the way it does on Clubhouse, which features user-created live events in the foreground of anyone who opens the app. Community Servers on Discord may apply to be on the Server Discovery menu, but the app remains focused on private and intimate groups and the larger interest-based communities you’re already a part of.
Given its healthy user base and existing utility as a go-to app for informal and transparent voice chat, Discord is well positioned to capture a completely different market for voice events. The app is a mainstay of the gaming community and is generally geared towards young people, in contrast to the entrepreneurs, VCs, and brands that flocked to the start of the Clubhouse buzz.
Discord’s gaming DNA isn’t holding it back. In recent years, Discord has grown beyond its gaming roots without betraying them, developing into a seamless chat experience for everything from college study groups to influencer fan centers. Last year, Discord doubled its valuation in six months. Just a quarter later, Microsoft is said to be in talks with the company over a $ 10 billion deal.
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