In 2015, Discord was created to allow friends to communicate while gaming. In five short years, the platform has expanded, “into a communication tool not just for gamers, but for everyone from study groups to sneakerheads to gardening enthusiasts” (Pierce, 2020). The app was established by Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy, since then Stan has left the company. The idea was created by the two boys and their love of video games, “at the time, all the tools built for this job were slow, unreliable, and complex. [They] knew they could make a better service that encouraged talking, helped form memories, and recreated the feeling of togetherness all found through gaming” (Discord). Discord as an app is valued at, “7 billion US dollars,” and has annual revenues of approximately, “120 million US dollars” (Viktor, 2021). Discord was developed to innovate on technologies to make communication between gamers more reliable. Today, discord has many features such as: live streaming, podcasting, servers, blogging, voice chats, and text chats. According to the discord site, discord has 150 million active monthly users, 19 million active servers per week, and 4 billion server conversation minutes daily. The main target group is gamers thirteen plus, that are socially active in live online gaming. Common slang, jargon you may hear Discord users say or type are VC (voice chat), AFK (away from keyboard), MSG (message) and @ing (mentioning). With discord expanding their market beyond just games, it will be interesting to see how the platform will develop in the future.

Discord, Discord logo, Discord 09/15/21 https://discord.com/branding

Discord, “Create Space for Everyone to Find Belonging.” https://discord.com/ updated September 15, 2021

Peters, Jay, Discord, The Verge, 31/03/21 https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/31/22356682/discord-stage-channels-clubhouse-like-feature-voice

Pierce, David, “How Discord (somewhat accidentally) invented the future of the internet.” https://www.protocol.com/china/tencent-charity-platform, Accessed October 29^th, 2020

Viktor, “The Discord Business Model – How Does Discord Make Money?” https://productmint.com/the-discord-business-model-how-does-discord-make-money/, updated July 5, 2021

Volkman, Eric, Gamer, Getty Images, 23/03/21 https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/03/23/report-microsoft-in-talks-to-acquire-discord-a-gam/