Discord, a well-known social networking site for gamers, is no longer one of the few places on the digital market without advertisements. The company is now going to include sponsored ads in its software, so get ready to see more of them.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) (subscription required) reports that the chat app, Discord will be introducing advertisements in an effort to boost its earnings.
The company intends to hire “more than a dozen people for ad-sales positions” to help with the advertisements, according to the source. Moreover, the company’s revenue has climbed to $600 million on an annual basis, prompting this initiative. As of 2020, that sum had “quadrupled from what it made.”
These upcoming ads will be tailored to users based on factors like their location, age, and gaming preferences. And when you use the app, they will show up in the lower left corner of your display. The Wall Street Journal further revealed that “the paid promotions are from videogame makers and will offer users gifts for completing in-game tasks while their friends watch on Discord.”
It is also claimed that the platform intends to offer users the option to disable these ads through their settings, providing some flexibility in managing their ad experience.
While free services and even some subscription-based platforms, like streaming services, frequently display advertisements, Discord has resisted this trend since the company’s founding in May 2015, or nearly nine years ago. Discord CEO Jason Citron stated in an NPR interview that one reason for this is that the company wants users to feel “comfortable and safe” as they use its service.
He said, “We believe that people’s data is their data and that people should feel comfortable and safe to have conversations and that their data is not going to be used against them in any way that is improper. We take privacy very seriously. We do not scan peoples’ messages. We do not read them.”
Recently Discord laid off 17% of its workforce, and its current sales are $600 million, according to Bloomberg, and the business is thinking about doing an IPO, or initial public offering, “at some point in the future” on the stock market.
However, Discord hasn’t made a formal announcement on the inclusion of the new ad formats, yet. But if reports are true, we can expect some new announcements soon.
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