Discord provides live voice chat
Discord has become the latest company to clone the Clubhouse, introducing a new feature called Stage Channels that allows you to broadcast live audio chat to a group of virtual listeners.
The feature allows you to broadcast live audio chat without worrying about people talking to each other and some of the other problems that come with traditional audio channels.
There are so-called Stage moderators to make sure that everything is running smoothly, and they have the ability to mute or even remove someone's voice while they are talking.
As a member of the audience, you can indicate when you want to speak, the moderator takes you to the speaking queue and then back to the audience as soon as you participate.
Currently, Stage channels are only available for community servers, and unlike a server that you might set up for you and your friends to meet and chat, community servers have special requirements.
Discord says: Communities should have posted clear rules for members to follow, however, even with these guidelines, Stage channels are widely accessible.
The clubhouse is available through iOS only, and someone needs to invite you to the platform before you can use the app, even though the Android version is under development.
In contrast, Discord is available across Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and across the web, and accordingly, the Stage channels feature is widely available.
And unlike Facebook or Twitter, the feature seems to be a natural fit for Discord, which was a place for voice chatting over voice channels, and which usually allowed everyone to speak freely.
The wide availability of the feature makes Discord the first platform to offer an easy way to host or listen to social voice rooms across most platforms.
Twitter's Spaces feature works across Android and iOS, but only some users have the ability to create audio rooms for now, and the company plans to allow anyone to host Space starting in April.
People and organizations have flocked to Discord since the start of the pandemic to host events like book clubs and concerts.