Discord retires the discovery interface for its Clubhouse-like audio broadcasts | Engadget

Discord says Stage Channels is a hit, but the Stage Discovery platform that was designed to make it easier to find servers with live speakers still needs a lot of work. After evaluating whether or not the portal has actually been helping users find communities broadcasting audio content relevant to them, Discord has decided to kill Stage Discovery on October 4th. 

Stage Discovery is an interface within the app populated with Channels broadcasting at that moment, including those from servers the user is already a member of. Based on some users’ initial impressions, though, it tends to be full of random shows they don’t particular care about. “In listening to our communities and admins directly, we’ve learned that we still have work to do in regards to server onboarding and moderation,” the company writes in its announcement.

Since Discord plans to continue investing in and expanding Stage Channels, it’s bound to roll out other ways to find audio broadcasts in the future. The company says it’s taking some time to rethink the discovery aspect of Stages and how it can better connect users with communities that are relevant to their interests.

According to the company’s announcement, almost a million communities have run a Stage as of today. People have been using it to host AMAs, conferences and even beatboxing competitions. For now, it will focus on introducing more features for Stage Channels itself, including better moderation tools. Discord also recently rolled out Scheduled Events for Stage, which allows users to plan events ahead of time so they can reach more potential attendees.