Discord, the gaming chat platform, has added another feature called Stage Channels. These are depicted as “a special type of voice channel… where some people can talk and others can listen as the audience.” It’s basically the defining feature of Clubhouse, the invite-only mobile app that momentarily pulled in media consideration recently.

In a Stage Channel, certain members are set apart as speakers while every other person is the mute audience. You may consider it like livestreaming without the video component, or like a live podcast. Or on the other hand, pause – it’s radio.

This functionality has become sought after by social media organizations in the previous few months because of the surge in popularity of Clubhouse, a mobile application that was abruptly being utilized by Silicon Valley and US media people. At that point, the agreement was that Clubhouse’s key feature would be copied by every other social media organization going – and now here’s Discord with their response.

Adding additional interest to this story is the gossip a week ago that Microsoft are in converses with purchase Discord for $10 billion (around £7.2 billion). Microsoft have fallen flat to construct their own streaming and community tool for people who play games (RIP Mixer), so it is not a surprise they’d be interested in buying one that as of now exists.