TECH CRUNCH - Discord, the popular online community platform, is cutting 17% of its workforce, amounting to ~170 employees. CEO Jason Citron attributes the layoffs to over-hiring and rapid expansion, stating that the company grew fivefold since 2020, leading to inefficiencies. While Discord experienced significant growth during pandemic lockdowns, it continues to face financial challenges and seeks to improve organizational agility through this reduction in staff. This move follows other recent tech layoffs, including those by Unity, Twitch, and Amazon.
42 posts categorized "Discord"
Discord Lays off 170 Employees, Cites Rapid Expansion as Cause
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Discord Revamps Mobile App With Messaging Focus and Visual Enhancements
TECH CRUNCH - Discord has rolled out a significant refresh of its mobile app, prioritizing messaging and incorporating user-requested improvements. Inspired by user feedback, the redesign aims to enhance the mobile Discord experience for on-the-go use. The layout provides a clearer display of channel and message threads, with improved search capabilities. The app also features visual enhancements, a revamped profile page, better media sharing, and a new mobile-friendly UI for video and voice calls.
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Discord Opens Virtual Shop for All Users, Expanding Beyond Nitro Subscribers
TECH CRUNCH - Discord is extending access to its virtual shop, initially available to Nitro subscribers, to all users. The in-app shop offers cosmetic updates, including avatar decorations and profile effects, allowing users to personalize their profiles. Nitro members receive discounts on these virtual items, while non-subscribers can purchase them directly. Discord's move into virtual goods aligns with its strategy of avoiding intrusive advertising and making its premium Nitro subscription appealing through a mix of fun customizations and functional perks.
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Discord Wants to Be the Modern-day AOL Instant Messenger
FAST COMPANY - Discord is evolving its platform to be more inviting and welcoming to new users. Focusing on creating a vibe of connection over self-presentation. With a user base of 150M and updates aimed at enhancing speed, safety, and usability, Discord aims to compete in a shifting social media landscape where traditional platforms are experiencing declining engagement. The platform's design emphasizes ease of use and customizability, allowing users to be their authentic selves in various group settings.
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Discord Expands Developer Monetization With New Sales Hub
TECH CRUNCH - Discord is enhancing its developer monetization efforts by allowing U.S., U.K., and European developers to sell their apps to Discord users, giving developers a 70% share of sales while Discord retains 30% for platform fees. Discord's open API has attracted over 750K third-party apps, with ~45M users accessing them monthly. Developers can monetize their apps through subscriptions, with plans to introduce tipping and one-time purchases in the future.
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Discord Kills Gas, the Anonymous Compliments App It Bought 9 Months Ago
TECH CRUNCH - Discord is shutting down Gas, an anonymous compliments-based social media app it bought in Jan 2023. The app, which became popular among teens for its positive social network approach, will officially cease operations on Nov 7. Discord CEO Jason Citron stated that the primary reason for acquiring Gas was to acquire its engineering talent.
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Discord Resolves Outage Caused by Unusual Traffic Spikes
TECH CRUNCH - Discord experienced a significant outage due to unusual traffic spikes, causing temporary service disruptions. Users reported issues with logging in and viewing messages. The outage began in the early morning and affected users across the platform. Cloudflare investigated the issue, revealing that legitimate traffic got caught in its filters.
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Discord Cuts Jobs Amid Restructuring Efforts
TECH CRUNCH - Chat app Discord has laid off ~4% of its workforce (~40 employees) as part of a company restructuring. The job cuts impacted roles in marketing, design, and entertainment partnerships. Discord emphasized its focus on long-term growth and mission delivery while confirming the staff reduction.
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Discord Introduces Xbox Game Streaming Feature
TECH CRUNCH - Discord now allows users to stream Xbox games directly to the chat app. Users can connect their Discord account with Xbox to access the feature, and premium Discord users with Nitro subscriptions can stream gameplay in 1080p with higher framerates.
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Discord Introduces Opt-In Parental Controls for Teens
TECH CRUNCH - Discord has launched a new opt-in feature called Family Center, aimed at making it easier for parents and guardians to monitor their teens' activities on the platform. The parental controls include an activity dashboard and a weekly email summary, allowing parents to see which communities and users their teens are interacting with, without accessing the contents of the conversations.
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Discord Is Testing Parental Controls That Allow for Monitoring of Friends and Servers
TECH CRUNCH - Discord is testing parental controls, including a "Family Center" feature, to provide increased oversight for its younger users. Parents can see their teen's friends, joined servers, and chat interactions but not the content of messages or calls. Discord has not confirmed the rollout or availability outside the U.S.
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Discord Experiments With AI-powered Chat Summaries Feature
TESTING CATALOG - Discord is testing an AI-powered feature that automatically generates summaries for chat conversations, which is currently available on a small number of servers. Users can access the feature by tapping on the expandable Summary bar on top of the chat history, and then browse through the summaries and provide feedback on the relevant part of the chat history.
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Discord Is Changing Usernames, Removing the Four-digit Discriminator Code
MASHABLE - Discord is removing the four-digit "discriminator" code from usernames in the coming weeks, meaning every user must pick a new unique username. This change will make the app more like other social media platforms. Display names will no longer need to be unique, but usernames will start with an "@".
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Discord Leak Suspect Charged With Stealing and Sharing Military Secrets
TECH CRUNCH - Jack Teixeira, a U.S. Air National Guard airman, has been charged under the Espionage Act for sharing classified national security secrets with his Discord chat group. Teixeira was charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. The documents included current military intelligence on the operation in Ukraine, troop movements, and U.S. surveillance of allies like South Korea, among other sensitive topics.
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Discord Updates Its Bot With ChatGPT-like Features
TECH CRUNCH - Discord is launching a set of new AI experiences on several servers. It is updating its Clyde bot with OpenAI ChatGPT technology that will allow users to have extended conversations with the bot. Discord is also updating its AutoMod moderation tool to harness the power of large language models. AutoMod now uses OpenAI technology to find and alert moderators whenever server rules may have been broken while being aware of the context of a conversation.
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