We’re testing out a possible replacement to Google Hangouts, if anyone is curious to try it.
Discord is a relatively new chat service, currently offering voice and text chatting. Screenshare / video chats are coming soon. Most of us turn off the video anyway, so this may not be a big deal.
Runs in your browser, also has standalone computer and phone apps.
The bandwidth requirements are super low compared to Hangouts. The audio quality is excellent.
Multiple audio channels are available, so we can separate out things like tech support, and not interrupt the main conversation.
Text from chats are saved between sessions, so all those useful links will be available for the next session.
On a desktop, this should ask you for a name and you can join without any setup or account. On mobile, you’ll need to install the app first and create an account.
Un-mute your mike, or we can’t hear you. Click the mike icon with a slash through it, lower left area.
That sounds like it would be a great improvment. We have a 17000 MB limit over a 30 day rolling period. we usually run pretty close to the wire, so a smaller bandwidth chat requirement is a plus. But then again it might still burn too much data. Our ping times range from 1700-800 so that wont help either. So, to attend the hangouts, I might still have to go to town for the DOW chats, but it sound like Discord is a pretty nice service.
It’s in “beta” right now, they claim full roll out in about a month.
When this is finally finished, I’m pretty sure we’ll switch to this from Google Hangouts, which has gotten less and less stable, along with high bandwidth requirements. Google has also stated they are only targeting enterprise users going forward.
The nice thing about Discord, is that at heart it is a “voice” server. Not video. Which is most of what we do anyways… so, everything’s nicely optimized for audio, and having the video is mostly a bonus. Screensharing is more important to me…
