discordMar 24, 2026

Discord Update: March 24, 2026 Changelog (opens in new tab)

Discord’s March 24, 2026 changelog focuses on making desktop gaming and navigation faster and more convenient. New features include improved screen sharing, easier voice invitations, expanded game profiles, and gifting for Marvel Rivals items. Discord also introduced browser-style navigation controls, faster performance, role-member lists, and refreshed settings pages. ### Improvements for Game Nights - Screen shares can now be zoomed and panned with a mouse wheel or trackpad. - Single-window Go Live streams should start faster. - A new **Invite to Voice** option recommends server members and nearby friends for voice chats. - The Game Stats Profile Widget now supports **Wuthering Waves**, displaying information such as achievements and favorite Resonators. - Users can wishlist and gift Marvel Rivals items through the game’s Discord server and Game Shop. ### Faster Desktop Navigation - Behind-the-scenes performance improvements reduce lag when moving around the desktop app. - New **Back** and **Forward** buttons work similarly to browser navigation, including support for compatible mouse buttons. - Clicking an `@Role` mention now shows up to 100 users assigned to that role. - The Desktop Settings redesign continues with updated Notifications, Voice and Video, Clips, and Streamer Mode pages. ### Additional Developer News - Discord also highlighted new opportunities for game developers announced at this year’s Game Developers Conference, directing developers to a separate blog post for details. Overall, the update is aimed at smoother desktop performance, easier navigation, and more features for connecting around games.

streamingdiscorduxperformance-optimization+4

spotifyFeb 19, 2026

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2025 Spotify FOSS Fund | Spotify Engineering (opens in new tab)

Spotify’s 2025 FOSS Fund provided €30,000 to FFmpeg, €15,000 to Mock Service Worker (MSW), and support to the Xiph.Org Foundation. The grants recognize both large, foundational projects and smaller efforts maintained by individuals, emphasizing that Spotify’s technology depends on volunteer-driven open source. Maintainers describe the funds as valuable for development, infrastructure, contributor support, and long-term sustainability. ## Spotify’s FOSS Fund - Established in 2022 to support open source projects that Spotify relies on and its developers value. - The 2025 recipients were: - FFmpeg - Mock Service Worker (MSW) - Xiph.Org Foundation - FFmpeg and Xiph.Org support technologies fundamental to streaming, while MSW is primarily maintained by its creator. - Despite differences in scale, all three projects depend heavily on volunteer contributions. ## FFmpeg: €30,000 - FFmpeg has been actively developed for more than 25 years and supports: - Multimedia encoding and decoding - Transcoding - Muxing and demuxing - Filtering - Streaming and playback - Its goal is to play every multimedia file ever created, making it widely used by hobbyists and companies such as YouTube, Netflix, X, and Spotify. - Maintainer Kieran Kunhya said the project is written almost entirely by volunteers. - The funding will support: - Hardware purchases - Conference travel - Development projects - FFmpeg’s maintainers argue that company donations also raise awareness of the project’s importance and demonstrate responsibility toward critical dependencies. - They identify reliable, long-term funding and dedicated company developers as major unmet needs in open source sustainability. ## Mock Service Worker: €15,000 - MSW is a JavaScript library for API mocking used by Spotify for unit testing and across its web stack. - Creator Artem Zakharchenko is the project’s sole full-time maintainer, supported by a small group of active contributors. - Major 2025 improvements included: - A new Interceptors architecture - Custom mock agents operating at the Node.js `node:net` level - First-class Server-Sent Events support - Planned work for 2026 includes: - A redesigned internal architecture - A new approach to request interception - Remote request interception, a technically difficult feature under development for several years - The previous Spotify grant primarily helped Artem support himself while working full time on open source. - The new funding will directly support continued MSW development and efforts to make external contributions more financially sustainable. - Artem notes that many contributors have been reluctant to accept payment, creating an ongoing challenge in building a sustainable maintainer and contributor community. ## Xiph.Org Foundation - The post identifies the Xiph.Org Foundation as a 2025 recipient and groups it with FFmpeg as a project representing technology fundamental to streaming. - The provided text does not include further details about the foundation’s grant amount, projects, or maintainer comments. Spotify’s grants illustrate how companies can support both major infrastructure projects and individual maintainers. Recurring funding, paid development time, contributor compensation, and practical resources such as hardware and conference travel remain important to the long-term health of open source.

streamingtypescriptjavascriptunit-testing+4

discordJun 2, 2025

Thank You for Ten Years (opens in new tab)

Discord is celebrating its tenth anniversary, marking a decade of evolution from a niche gaming communication tool into a global social platform for 200 million monthly active users. The milestone report highlights how the platform has shifted the social media paradigm away from algorithmic feeds toward intimate, "digital living room" environments. Ultimately, the data shows that integrated voice and video features are the primary drivers for long-form engagement, significantly increasing both session duration and user retention. ## Gaming Ecosystem and Engagement Metrics * Discord’s reach has expanded to 200 million monthly active users, with over 90% of the user base having played a PC, console, or mobile game within the last 30 days. * The platform supports a massive variety of content, with users engaging in more than 8,000 unique titles per month on PC alone. * Total monthly gaming time on the platform exceeds 2 billion hours, highlighting its role as a central hub for the global gaming community. * Technical integration of voice chat acts as a force multiplier for engagement; users stay in gaming sessions three times longer when connected via Discord voice. ## Social Dynamics and Multimedia Co-consumption * Social influence drives discovery and play, as 28% of users launch a specific game within one hour of watching a friend stream it via the platform. * The presence of a social circle dramatically impacts performance and endurance, with gameplay sessions lasting seven times longer when users play with friends. * The platform has successfully transitioned into a general-purpose hangout space; after gaming ends, 66% of users remain to watch videos, 59% listen to music, and 49% watch movies or shows together. * 92% of users utilize voice channels simultaneously while gaming, indicating that the platform functions as a secondary layer to the primary gaming experience. ## The Architecture of Small-Scale Socializing * Discord has redefined digital interaction by prioritizing "micro-communities" over mass broadcasting, with 90% of all activity occurring in small, intimate servers. * Communication remains focused and personal, evidenced by the fact that the average voice call consists of only four participants. * Users are increasingly tribal but focused, typically rotating their time between three different friend-based servers per month. * This structure replaces traditional social media "doomscrolling" with active participation, mimicking the feeling of physical presence through low-latency voice and video communication. As Discord enters its second decade, its trajectory suggests that the future of social tech lies in facilitating high-quality, small-group interactions rather than massive public feeds. For developers and creators, the takeaway is clear: community stickiness is best achieved by building tools that allow users to seamlessly transition between active tasks, like gaming, and passive co-consumption of media.

streamingreal-time-communicationvoipinstant-messaging+3