26 votes

Discord launches a new website and announces $100M in new funding as it starts to distance itself from being a gaming-oriented service, moving towards day-to-day communication and "your place to talk"

6 comments

  1. [4]
    Deimos
    (edited )
    Link
    That's $380M in total venture capital now, with still no obvious business plan (the game store failed, and Nitro won't be nearly enough). Forbes has a large article (with a bit of a strange...

    That's $380M in total venture capital now, with still no obvious business plan (the game store failed, and Nitro won't be nearly enough).

    Forbes has a large article (with a bit of a strange framing), which talks more about the investment and includes that their valuation is $3.5B now: Discord Was Once The Alt-Right’s Favorite Chat App. Now It’s Gone Mainstream And Scored A New $3.5 Billion Valuation

    And the new round's investor (Index Ventures) made a blog post as well: Discord: the Community Home with Soul

    23 votes
    1. [3]
      Adys
      Link Parent
      I think on one side they do want to take on Twitch for streaming, and it's possible that with this move they're willing to take on Slack. I've used Discord at all my companies in the last 5 years...

      I think on one side they do want to take on Twitch for streaming, and it's possible that with this move they're willing to take on Slack.

      I've used Discord at all my companies in the last 5 years as a replacement for Slack and it works great. It's possible they're aiming for a Microsoft acquisition or something like that (with a foothold both in gaming and enterprise).

      7 votes
      1. stu2b50
        Link Parent
        Discord doesn't have many of the critical features a company would want, though. Namely, robust and 3rd party audited security, a very solid ToS that very clearly protects your data, backend...

        Discord doesn't have many of the critical features a company would want, though.

        Namely, robust and 3rd party audited security, a very solid ToS that very clearly protects your data, backend integration with IT systems, uptime SLAs, and honestly it's kinda worrying that they seemingly have no monetization plan.

        Just think of all the insider knowledge you could get if you had access to Slack data. It would be horrific, for everyone.

        It's taken a while for Slack to build up that reputation and trust. Discord has a lot to progress to be made before they get close.

        20 votes
      2. Gaywallet
        Link Parent
        Microsoft teams is their slack competitor, I don't see them taking on discord anytime soon. They had mixer for streaming too, and abandoned that for Facebook gaming.

        Microsoft teams is their slack competitor, I don't see them taking on discord anytime soon. They had mixer for streaming too, and abandoned that for Facebook gaming.

        9 votes
  2. unknown user
    Link
    Honestly, I've never understood. What's in the name? Discord is a synonym for strife, conflict, hostility, and disagreement. That hardly seems like the right name for a product that's all about...

    Honestly, I've never understood. What's in the name? Discord is a synonym for strife, conflict, hostility, and disagreement. That hardly seems like the right name for a product that's all about connecting people in a way to encourage and foster discussion. Especially one that is aiming to become a "day to day communication" platform.

    Then again, "Slack" as a work-oriented chat platform could be considered just as big of an antonym to their intended use cases.

    18 votes
  3. sqew
    Link
    I had kinda been wondering if/when they'd be making this pivot in the way they brand and market themselves. Not sure about other people's experiences, but when I started using Discord several...

    I had kinda been wondering if/when they'd be making this pivot in the way they brand and market themselves.

    Not sure about other people's experiences, but when I started using Discord several years ago it was still pretty thoroughly a niche, "gamery" thing. The early communities I saw and joined were almost all entirely about gaming or at least pretty strongly related.

    Since then, though, it's definitely gone mainstream. Even my less internet or gaming oriented friends have heard of it in one way or another, and almost every community I've joined in the last year or two has been very much not about gaming. I'm in multiple servers with friends, one with colleagues from work, a bunch of hobbyist ones, and so on. Discord has done an incredible job of creating a relatively seamless and easy to get into experience for communicating across text, voice, and video, and I haven't seen any of the other services in their field (e.g. Slack) manage quite the same thing. Not sure how they'll be able to monetize that (sure hope the answer isn't ads...), but I'm super glad they exist.

    11 votes