Patreon pilots Discord-like chatroom feature

The fan membership platform Patreon is starting to roll out a chat feature, connecting creators straight with their fanbase in a gaggle message. The providing will turn out to be out there to some creators at this time, however will unfold extra broadly throughout the coming months.

Patreon has lengthy had an integration with Discord, which robotically provides patrons at sure membership tiers to a paywalled Discord server (as long as the patron has their Discord account linked to Patreon). This new feature isn’t a essentially Discord killer, nevertheless it achieves the same impact of getting a complete fan group collectively in a single place to have a extra direct relationship with creators.

“Discord is amazing,” Patreon CEO Jack Conte informed TechCrunch. “We’re going to continue to support that partnership and support that integration, and invest in it even.”

Still, some creators and their communities aren’t Discord savvy, and as Patreon vies to safe its dominance within the paid fan memberships world, a local group messaging feature may give creators one other methods to monetize.

“Some creators will want an in-the-box solution, and they’ll just want to use something simple right in the app,” Conte stated. “Their fans don’t have to download another app. Their fans don’t have to go to a different place.”

Patreon’s chat feature doesn’t have as a lot performance as Discord (which is smart, since Discord is an entire established product, and this one feature inside a bigger app). At launch, creators will have the ability to create 4 totally different chats to begin, and any of these chats will be gated to particular patron tiers. So, a cooking vlogger might need one chat for followers to change recipes, one chat to put up photos of meals, and one other to debate new uploads. On Discord, one fan group’s server might need twenty to thirty channels, and whereas that may be enjoyable in sure situations, it might additionally overwhelm followers who’re newer to Discord.

“The thinking here is creators should have control, not Patreon,” stated Conte.

Fans themselves can even customise their very own profiles, which present how lengthy they’ve been a patron of a sure creator, what different communities they’re in, and a photograph, identify and bio.

At the outset, moderation will likely be dealt with by the creator themself, with followers capable of report feedback. Down the road, Conte says that creators will have the ability to appoint moderators to assist.