From Discord to see the "super group" model of social networking in the future

"Join Discord" has gradually become a new trend, especially in the Z generation group. You can enter a new world through a link, chat with friends here, find games, animations, investment, etc., build a fan community, organize a book club, and so on. Move to 【Rongyun Global Internet Communication Cloud】Learn more

This is a new type of social platform that is popular in Silicon Valley, including real-time audio and video, instant messaging, live broadcast and other functions, as well as a rich robot assistance system to meet different needs from individuals to projects, organizations, and companies.

Data shows that 18% of US Internet users use Discord every day. Young users between the ages of 16 and 24 are more active, accounting for 32%. This means that Discord has a large generation Z user base and is a social form that represents future trends.

Discord, from the game voice tool to the most In virtual community

Discord really gives a new way of life in the current virtual world.

It was born in 2015. Its founder, Jason Citron, is an in-depth gamer, and developable games have never been commercialized successfully.

In the process, he got an inspiration that later proved to be enough to set off a new social storm:

All game developers need to integrate social elements into their products. They can choose to directly pay for social tools to integrate into their products instead of building them from scratch.

Discord was born. At the beginning, it mainly focused on game players, using the game to connect the microphone as the starting point, and supporting users to communicate online. "Fortnite", "SpellBreak", "PUBG Mobile", "Royal Clash", "Minecraft", "Original God" and other games have set up servers to gather players, and this has gradually become a game player community.

With the development of time, more and more animation, education, investment communities and fans use this platform to communicate. Discord's positioning has changed from a game chat software to a comprehensive social community. There are 19 million servers on the platform, and the label system is becoming more and more abundant, including mechanical keyboards, sneaker equipment, origami, fan animations, virtual idols, and so on.

Currently, Discord has about 300 million users and 150 million monthly active users. Its status in the social world has also risen as the number of users grows.

So, how does Discord create a new world that attracts such a large number of users?

The answer is low-latency network real-time communication + high-quality content + high tolerance and complete community system.

(Server, channel, chat area, member area constitute Discord community)

The Discord community consists of a server, a channel, a chat area, and a member area. The server is equivalent to a super group, and users can set up channels in the server to communicate.

Discord was originally designed to meet the temporary communication of game players. You can quickly enter a room through an invitation link without first adding friends and other actions.

Here, you can stay if you have a chat, but you can choose to leave if you don't. But different from the relationship established around users, here is the channel as the center. You join or leave, this space is always there, and users are encouraged to have more follow-up communication after a temporary exchange.

Moreover, Discord broke the dimensional wall between different communities, allowing users to extend the social layer. There are a variety of communities with different themes. Users can interact in the circle, or they can go out of the circle to explore other groups, and switch between multiple servers.

In terms of function, Discord can not only provide users with a communication platform, but also provide organizational capabilities, but also has certain tool attributes, which is equivalent to a collection of three different categories of products in China, YY + forum + WeChat / QQ group.

In terms of gameplay, Discord has given users the greatest autonomy, and for this reason, it has also given up many common social gameplay, with no "fans" and no algorithmic recommendations.

Together, these factors constitute a unique sense of community identity for Discord users, creating a strong and loyal user group for Discord, which is why it stands out from the competitive environment where there are many rivals.

Now Discord has become the "third space" on the Internet, and it has become the darling of capital. In September of this year, Discord was valued at US$15 billion after the latest round of financing, which doubled its valuation from the previous round of financing.

Discord user needs and core functions

Discord users and their needs are divided into the following two categories:

Game lovers and players: get more efficient communication in the game through Discord's channel, get more game information, and find game partners;

Ordinary users who are not game players: based on a topic, find groups with common interests, communicate, and obtain information.

The charm of Discord is to support a large number of users to quickly establish connections, communicate online at the same time, and gradually form a diversified interest community based on games. Its core function design also revolves around this original intention.

server membership

Discord's server functions are similar to a group chat community (super group), everyone can build, maintain, and operate the community.

It supports a large number of users to communicate online at the same time, and there is no upper limit for members. Interest groups gradually evolve into communities, connecting users with common interests together and enhancing their sense of participation.

server multi-channel function

After the server is created, two communication channels are provided under each server: graphic channel, audio and video channel. Server (super group) operators can choose to create multiple different topic channels as needed to connect users with common topics together.

After joining the server (super group), users can freely choose to enter a channel to communicate and obtain information without applying.

Each channel shares the membership relationship in the server, and any member in the server can be @ when communicating in the channel. However, the content of messages between channels and the number of unread messages related to oneself are independent of each other and do not affect each other.

This mode is different from the completion of a chat room. Ordinary groups cannot achieve a shared membership among multiple channels under the server, and the message content is completely isolated.

sub-area function in the chat channel

In the general group chat mode, all chat contents in the same group are displayed in chronological order. When some members of a channel communicate on a topic, the content of other users' messages is mixed with content related to the current topic, and it is difficult to contextually correlate the content of a topic.

The sub-area function in the Discord channel solves this problem well. Users can create a sub-area for a certain content. This function can separate topic-related content from the content of messages sent by other group friends in the chat interface. Communicate within the channel. In this way, group friends will not conflict with each other before chatting, and people with different interests can also get along in the same channel harmoniously.

Content richness and low latency experience

The channel provides various types of interactive capabilities such as text, pictures, graphics, stickers, videos, etc., which enriches the way of content expression and meets the communication needs of users with different content.

It supports content editing, replying, emoticons and other functions, which improves the interactivity and readability of the content.

In addition to graphic chat, Discrod also has functions such as voice, video conferencing, and live broadcast. Users can join various speech rooms at will, and they can interact with people already in the speech room just by entering the server and turning on their microphone. The low-latency network real-time communication technology based on WebRTC provides users with a high-quality audio and video communication experience.

Message notification & unread message count logic

When the number of members in the channel is large and the message interaction is frequent, it is easy to generate a large number of offline message notifications for members who are not online. In order to avoid too many notifications to cause harassment to users, Discord has processed the notification logic.

In addition to the user-level support settings to receive all notifications, only @我’s notifications, and no notifications, Discord will control the frequency of notifications after the number of the server (supergroup) channel reaches a certain level. Of users can be notified when they are offline.

At the same time, the number of unread messages displayed on each channel is only @ to its own unread messages, avoiding information interference caused by other messages in the channel to users.

Powerful robot function

The powerful robot function is one of the important reasons why users choose Discord to build a community.

Users can flexibly set up various business processing logics of the robot, so that the robot can effectively help operators manage and operate the community, such as: query the current active users in the server by inputting instructions, or use the robot’s rating according to the active situation to determine the user’s Modify the color of the name or add a special logo to distinguish users' different levels and other capabilities.

Benchmarking Discord, domestic application development status and pain points

There are also many "Chinese version of Discord" attempts in China. Most of them have entered the game since the end of 2019 and will be launched for testing by the end of 2020. Such as: Hao Shuo, Mew, Manhole Cover Chat, Kaihei La, DoDo Senyou Circle, NokNok (Nao Nao Community), QQ channel, etc.

Let’s say, Kaihei, Mew, and DoDo have all received capital investment, indicating that the capital market is generally optimistic about Discord-like products.

The "Chinese version of Discord" currently on the market is basically still in the experimental stage, and there is still a period of time before the finished product.

At present, the socialization of games has become an industry trend, and game manufacturers need to take defensive actions in advance. At the same time, in view of the powerful potential of the Discord model, domestic social software, forums, local websites, interest groups, etc. all have the need to upgrade to the Discord form.

As Discord founder Jason Citron said, relying on third-party services rather than building tools from scratch is a good way to quickly gain social skills.

At present, service providers in the domestic market want to cover the functions of Discord-like products, and they mainly face the following pain points:

Upper limit of group members: There is an upper limit for group members in group mode. The effect of increasing the upper limit of members can be achieved by adding servers, but the cost of payment is higher.

Channel function: On the Discord platform, a server is a community, and the membership is in the server (super group). The channel can use the membership under the server and the content between messages is isolated. The current group function cannot be realized.

Offline messages: When a group member is offline, the offline message will be stored in the offline service. When the group member goes online next time, they will receive a large number of offline messages, causing the application to freeze.

Unread message count & push logic: By default, all messages in the group will be pushed and unread message count, and they cannot be distinguished and counted separately.

Audio and video communication capabilities: low-latency, low-cost, high-quality real-time audio and video communication capabilities are insufficient.

Cloud Fusion Super Group

As a safe and reliable global Internet communication cloud service provider, Rongyun has realized the SDK capability layout of Discord-like scenarios to solve the pain points in the large community model.

Rongyun supports the Ultra Group service that matches the Discord business model, which can meet the requirement of unlimited membership based on the group model; it supports the creation of multiple channels under the same server, and the messages between channels are completely isolated. Developers with Discord-like functional requirements are welcome to move to [Rongyun Global Internet Communication Cloud] to communicate and consult.