Discord celebrated its sixth birthday on Thursday (May 13) by unveiling a few new features, including a pilot program that allows creators to offer paid tickets for audio events.
“It’s the first feature where you’ll be able to earn money through Discord, and it’s in private beta for now while we learn how to make it great for everyone,” Co-founder Jason Citron wrote in a company blog post. “And our most requested feature — Threads — is coming to Discord this summer, which will make text chats even easier and more streamlined, so you can go down those rabbit holes whenever you want.”
Citron said Discord is also rolling out Stage Discovery in June, a feature that lets users explore audio events without the need to bounce around servers to discover the ones they want to listen to. “Discord is about friends and communities, and we believe Stage Discovery will allow you to find audio events you’ll want to experience with your friends, just like a physical event,” he wrote.
The announcement follows PYMNTS’ March report on Discord’s Stage Channels program, which gives users easier ways to manage voice chats with up to 1,000 members.
Discord, which launched in 2015, was initially a platform primarily for video game enthusiasts, offering voice, text and video chat. It now boasts more than 140 million users. At one point, the company was considering a deal with Microsoft that would have seen the software giant purchase Discord for $10 billion. (Discord has since abandoned that proposal, saying it wants to focus on building the company.)
Discord’s live event feature functions similarly to the service offered by the popular Clubhouse platform. And Discord isn’t alone in pursuing new audio features. Also on the docket are Twitter’s Spaces services, as well as potential audio features from LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram and Slack.
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