Discord for Business
My company is presently evaluating alternatives to Slack internally. Turns out, Discord is one of the most feature rich alternatives, with a relatively smooth UI and voice/video/screenshare capability. I couldn't even get half of about 10 people on the testing committee to try it.
The reasons:
-The logo in the tray is a video game controller
-The home screen shows a listing of games
-The chat bot addressed a female employee when she joined as "love"
-Touchpoint emails aren't asking for feedback, they're talking about the journey for users to share gaming experiences
Except the third one above, none of these are "bad" per se. And the product is really solid. There's a market there that could certainly use it as is, but perhaps an even bigger (and more lucrative one) that will be turned off to the current state. We're not moving forward with Discord because we don't feel it really has us as a high value audience. But some tweaks to modify the UI/UX to meet these differing needs based on license type may be worth exploring.
Thanks!
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You guys have all the backing infrastructure and services ready to go, all you need to do is spin up a UI/brand that's business-friendly and price yourselves a dollar cheaper than Slack.
In my experience The Business thinks that Slack is "too expensive! *gasp* Seven dollars a month!" and Technical Users are on the fence about changing jobs vs actually using MS Teams. Discord is always suggested as an option by the Technical side, but always rejected due to the gaming-centric branding/UI. I think that you could really carve off a tasty chunk of this market with a minimal amount of risk or effort.
Sure seems like a better bet than hoping the VC cash never stops flowing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Interestingly, I haven't seen anyone mention what I consider to be the #1 obstacle to using Discord (as it exists today) for business purposes: the Terms of Service. Yes, the "game-y" logo and branding and whatnot might be a turn off for many businesses, but I'd hope that the fact that for-profit use is explicitly forbidden by the ToS and that Discord might be well within their rights to sue your company for part of whatever revenues could be linked to the unauthorized use for their app.
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Debido a Covid-19, propuse a mi universidad usar Discord para clases virtuales, por supuesto, dijeron que no, ya que todos tenemos un dominio @uniempresarial de Microsoft Outlook. Entonces, estamos usando Microsoft Teams, lo que me permite grabar las reuniones (se pueden incluir), cargar archivos en una pestaña separada (esto ya se puede hacer en un canal de texto). Algo interesante es poder usar espacios de almacenamiento en la nube, ya que son OneDrive, Box y Google Drive.
Lo más sorprendente de esto es que en Teams una persona puede convertirse en el organizador de una reunión que, después de agregar a los participantes, aparecerá la opción de unirse a través del calendario integrado de Microsoft, algo que es muy bueno para establecer llamadas con el equipo de trabajo y en caso de que no quiera usar esto para las empresas, sería muy útil hacer horarios de juego con amigos y que el calendario le recuerde, además, la notificación parece que la reunión es ahora.0 -
With Zoom starting to look like a stovetop hot dog when it comes to their shady practices, sooner rather than later would be a very opportunistic time for Discord to jump on the business bandwagon.
Like another poster said, having a second app would be irritating to some. Maybe Discord could have some sort of "Business & Home hours" setting that auto hides servers depending on the user set time and day, and perhaps even changes to a pre-set business display name, or appends a user set business friendly nickname to the end of their tag.1 -
In terms of the "unprofessional" part of the logo. You can use a script to replace it, or an addblocker ( if you are using the webapp version)
If you are annoyed by having game servers on your discord at work. Create a new account and don't join any other channel.
For me the only thing I wish Discord moved into the main interface was direct messaging. Direct messaging is something by design on discord that is moved to the background to be done every once in a while. The searches are performed on a per person basis.
Slack has more integration options which is pretty cool and all, but have of them wouldn't be necessary if ease of joining a "workplace" was lower. Making SMS, emails unnecessary internally. Slack's settings and permissions are annoying to change as you have to straddle between their website and the client / webapp. Discord allows you to do it on the fly from inside the app or client. Discord has better search operators within a server: "has:file" "from: Xzila#1234". Discord font sizes and colors are easier to read. HOWEVER slack allows for the starting of threads from posts within a channel which is a pretty cool feature.3 -
@Xzila, from all the jibber jabber in this thread I love, your comment stand out. Direct Messaging is really hard to use and really useful. Now that gaming is taking the realms of work, This thread discussion is becoming even more pointless.
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1 Year and over 40 comments later and the answer is still to just use teams.
Literally all the concerns with branding, app cohesion, SSO and enterprise app compatibility, is addressed by using an E level office account.
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Can confirm that a Matrix.org server with the Riot frontend is a very valid alternative to Slack.
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Nice find Shanie.
We found Rocket Chat to be a quite solid viable option too and its free and actively developed. However Discord business would still be a very nice option.0 -
Yesterday's announcement is definitely a step towards what we asked for!
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I support the development of a discord for business/enterprise purposes because I genuinely think convincing discord to do that would be easier than convincing existing enterprise applications to add a push-to-talk feature to voice meetings that works when the application's window isn't in focus.
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looks like we may be getting our wish:
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Quote:
Not really, but it is at least a step in the right direction.
They are just removing some of the gaming design, but it is still not a "Discord Business" version which is what we all want to see.1 -
Hello Guys,
i've made a design for the discord Business.
Design Link : https://www.behance.net/gallery/100130269/Discord-Business-Design
You can see all the design UI and views Click Here
Help it reach out to Discord and please suggest some ideas to add in the design.
Thank you !
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That's awesomeness!!!
Great work Mistrey Wolf. Thank you.
I know there is ways to actually theme discord yourself one of my friends have done it; I just never tried myself:
Example:
https://betterdiscord.net/home/
https://betterdiscordlibrary.com/themes
https://livtutor.com/how-to-install-discord-themes/Maybe you could apply the business theme this way and sell it "for a dime or two" until Discord actually makes and official version?
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BetterDiscord is against the ToS: any modifications to Discord or custom implementations of the Discord API (using a user account) are.
This is not ideal for a company.
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Quote:
"BetterDiscord is against the ToS"True indeed!
I'm just saying that it is possible and the next best thing to an official version from Discord themselves .
Using Discord for business as it is right now is also absolutely against Discords TOS.
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I don't see any issues with using Discord to communicate as a company. With 'Discord for Business', I don't think anyone meant it to sell your product, which I think you are implying. People in this thread want an alternative to Slack -- a better company conversation platform.
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Hello Lieuwe,
The Discord for Business that i made is only a design , and it is not possible to make with any "theme changer" as its not just a theme yet a whole new infrastructure .
the product i 've shown is not for selling , and i have all the copyrights of the design and no one is trying to sell it, I would be glad developping the UI for free if Discord wanted it otherwise it remains just a design.(im not looking for money or any benefit out of this) .
as for your claims that you don't see any issues with using discord using to communicate as a company , well reasons are well explained , starting from the first response.
I will try to reach out to Discord Management about the design and the UI which would be a whole new product not just a new "theme".
Design link : https://www.behance.net/gallery/100130269/Discord-Business-Design
Thank you.
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Quote:
"I don't see any issues with using Discord to communicate as a company"It´s strictly forbidden in their TOS and they are allowed at anytime to delete your "company server" without any given notice as they seem fit?
That is a huge issue for a company...
Well at least it used to be unless they recently modified and removed "business part" from their TOS (I haven't had time to re-read it yet)
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Mistrey Wolf,
"The Discord for Business that i made is only a design , and it is not possible to make with any "theme changer" as its not just a theme yet a whole new infrastructure ."
I'm aware. My response was to DreamQuest as they listed links to a custom Discord client (BetterDiscord). That is against the ToS.
"as for your claims that you don't see any issues with using discord using to communicate as a company , well reasons are well explained , starting from the first response."
This was again a response to DreamQuest as they said "Using Discord for business as it is right now is also absolutely against Discords TOS." DreamQuest, I can't anywhere in the ToS find any statement regarding usage of Discord as a company.
"I will try to reach out to Discord Management about the design and the UI which would be a whole new product not just a new "theme"."
I honestly doubt they will reply, but it's worth a shot. Discord seems to be generalising their service and focusing it on a wider audience instead of just 'gamers', which may kinda result in what we're trying to achieve with this feedback post. They'll probably redirect you to the feedback site or this specific thread.
Your designs look amazing, by the way.
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@lieuwe_berg
Well they must have updated the TOS recently then and removed the "business part".That is then of course good news..
Pure speculation; but then maybe since they have removed that section in TOS (I still haven't had time read the updated TOS), it then maybe reveals theoretically that Discord then have plans to do something about the business side then after all?
@Mistrey Wolf
Thank you very much for your efforts in this matter and taking some time to do it.
I do really hope they will listen to you.
Kind regards.0 -
I've been using Discord with my Software team for about a month now and everyone loves it the way it is
BUT: the only deal breaker for not being company compliant and that we can't scale it is LDAP integration, we need a way to easily admin roles & permisions: add new people and remove them when they leave the company.1 -
Our company are also trialing discord as an alternative to slack, we are mix of electronic devs, software devs, and a manufacturing team.
I think some things that make this weird are nitro boosts to upgrade the server. Be nice to just be able to pay X to get HQ streaming for the sever ( mostly just need good quality screen sharing ). A lot of the server controls are super cool and can set up really good permission management etc. Categorizing things is really nice too.
Some of the problems are that people have trouble with their audio / mic setup where it works just fine in other programs we use ( slack, zoom, etc ). A few people have resorted to using their mobiles and actually become way less active in discord than they were on slack. I know I have had various problems with discord trying to get my mic/headset properly setup as well.
Private messaging is a bit weird, would be nice that it was easy to setup a private group chat with server people rather than friends. It's like PMing is outside the concept of "servers", which i get, but it makes it weird.
Conversation threads would be nice like in slack, not super critical, just nice to have ( also for gaming )
Integrations are another problem, but having a look at the docs I think it would be pretty easy to build some bots to do that.
I think it has real potential for the workplace.
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I agree that a business version would be amazing. Either a different app e.g. "Discord For Business", or a different UI mode suited for business needs. Just some way to use Discord that is more suited for business and doesn't offend snowflakes like the one who started this thread.
But never betray the original audience that fell in love with Discord, the gamers and other not-so-serious people.
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I agree, but what features would a Discord For Business have that would be so impactfull?
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Having been using Discord for our work for a bit, it mostly works fine.
Some things that would be nicer :-
Have a simple payment system to get high quality streaming ( can be low FPS) for screen sharing
Have an option to auto assign a role to users with verified emails of a certain domain (pain in the ass at the moment having to notice when someone new joins the server as it is setup to restrict all the channels)
Private / Group messaging essential lives outside of the server, for business, it would be good if the group/private messaging was scoped to the server. Meaning you don't have to "friend" people.
Maybe an option to ban Gifs on a per channel basis :) as much as I like them, it can pollute channels.
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> Have a simple payment system to get high quality streaming ( can be low FPS) for screen sharing
Either nitro ($5/mo) will give you 1080p 30fps or 720p 60fps, with Go Live (in servers) at source. You can also server boost to unlock higher quality Go Live for your entire server.
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I think the recent iterations of Discord made it a bit more serious to use, still the gaming rep hangs on :) Working in parallel with many other platforms in order to communicate with clients, I actually prefer and enjoy using Discord for running our own company.
I totally agree with Keith on the simplified payment options, though. Instead of requiring the staff to pay for Nitro individually, I'd love to see an option focused on companies or communities, where the owner pays for boosts that only apply to his server. No voting or boosting from members, just straight to the point. That would make billing for companies much easier.
Additional features I'd like to see:
* increased message-length: we're sometimes sending code or logs back and forth and the 2K-limit is actually very limiting here.
* DMs and group-calls to members should stay on the server. The current concept of a totally unrelated "friends" list is also very confusing. I.e. you can't mention the server's channels, members may go by different names on the friends-list. You need to "be friends" in order to write DMs. Especially that concept is a bit strange, when onboarding new staff that you don't know too well yet.
* an event for "starting a call" in a voice channel. When you join a call, chances are good, that no one notices. Currently, we send "ring the bell"-Giphys around to make people aware :D. But It would be helpful, get a notice or being able to post "join this call"-messages into a channel. I.e. we use the voice channels for team-meetings, which are absolutely great. But there's no actual notification for members, so people have to setup their own reminders, they sometimes miss the call or come late because of that. I think Slack does that is quite well, where a notification is posted into a channel for others to join.
* Speaking of voice-channels: a history of calls would be nice, also a way to post messages into this call (rather than having to use a separate text-channel). I.e. sharing links, screenshots or notes related to the discussion.
* being able to set a different avatar for a server. Sometimes people join with their existing account, coming up with strange and unrelated avatars. While we try to make it as fun as possible, it's still business by the end of the day :)
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Well there was time when I was consider this too for my business because I do really like the way Discord works and I hate Slack with good reasons.
But as things are now; no western business should run their business communications over Discord because Discord is China owned through CCP controlled Tencent. This mean that all your company data is at risk and you could be eavesdropped by the CCP.
How fun would that be?
Discord used to display that they had Tencent, ( Website: https://www.tencent.com/en-us/index.html / Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent), as one of their large investors but they have now removed all that data/information from their "About Us" page with the latest updates of their website.
Luckily for us in the free world we have access to the "Wayback Machine" which shows that the internet never forgets:
https://shorturl.gg/discord-aboutJust scroll down a bit and you will find Discord displaying their main investors and bragging about that they received over $200 million from their investors.
So the point is; don't run your business on Discord, you're data is vulnerable and at risk. If you like to share your data with the Chinese communist party (CCP), then fine, go ahead. But don't come later and let me say: "I told you so".
There is a reason why Chinese CCP controlled companies like Huaway, TikTok is being banned in the west.Now think about that..
If you do not know who Tencent is and why it matters then read this article here:
https://shorturl.gg/tencent-ccp-puppet
A much better and safer alternative option exist where you control your own data:
Instead use a safe option which is also free. Rocket chat is a open source self hosted business oriented community server just like discord and you are in control of your own data as you install Rocket chat on your own server. They also offer a cloud version too of course if you do not want or do not have the technical skills to install/run the server on your own. Their price plans is very fair too, unlike Slack that robs you fast of your hard earned money as a business owner.You can find Rocket Chat here:
https://rocket.chat/
There is also a second very interesting alternative to Rocket Chat called Riot which requires a "Synapse server". Personally I would like to look deeper into it but i never seem to have time for it. But you guys can read about it here:
Riot Front-end/website:
https://riot.im/
https://riot.im/download/desktop/
Synapse server:
https://matrix.org
https://matrix.org/docs/guides/installing-synapse
https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/how-to-install-matrix-synapse-on-ubuntu-1804/All right, that's it...
I'm throwing out the towel along with Discord and I'm out of here!Note : I'm not affiliated in any way of Rocket Chat. I just use them for my own company as a happy user that has 100% control over my company's data and communication. ;-)
Cheers everyone and good luck!
Kind regards
PowerQuest-1
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