Each week, I’ll share a new way for you to stay connected with your friends and family. This Friday, I talk about Discord. Discord is an online platform that allows you to setup your own channel with chat and voice communications. I was turned on to Discord by a friend who operates an FB group who wants to expand the type of content he can post.

Discord is a platform primarily designed for the gaming community. You specify a username and email when you signup, and in exchange you get a 4-digit code and the ability to search for and invite people to chat with. Discord works by setting up servers within the app where you can setup custom channels and talk or call people using the Internet. The platform is really geared towards talking to people in realtime while you’re playing a game with or without them.

You can invite friends by giving them your code and you can text like any other app or call them. Discord is actually pretty cool because it’s primarily designed to operate handsfree. If you think about it, there are times you want to talk to your friends while playing something else and some games don’t have in-app chat.

Many people have created servers beyond gaming and are using Discord to for private communications. Many, many new uses for Discord are popping up with people hosting dance classes, book clubs, and conventions. Discord offers a for-pay option called Nitro which gives you access to a higher power feed into Discord, large file upload access, and more features. Furthermore, if you’re a game developer and are looking for another audience Discords 250 million users make an appealing marketplace.

For the longest time, Discord has not had a video chat service, but is gradually rolling it out. They’re currently limiting the number of users to a max of 25 to test out the feature, and right now only 5% of users have access to the service. We’ll see how it plays out because it could be a solid alternative to Zoom’s time bomb free level.

If you’re looking for a community during these times of ‘Rona, and an active gaming community give Discord a try. It’s free and has a lot of features for building a community amongst your friends. You can use Discord online and on your phone, or download it for your Mac or Windows machine.