Discord is paying for teens to give each other compliments
The Discord app is seen on an iPhone in this photo illustration in Warsaw, Poland on April 3, 2021.
Jaap Arriens | NurPhoto | Getty Images
We’ve been here and done this before when it comes to social media: a new, fast-growing app is providing a way for online users to share inspiration and encouragement. At some point in most social media companies’ histories, dating all the way back to Facebook’s role in global “democratization” during Arab Spring, early social media success has been focused on positive effects.
The world has come a long way since Arab Spring and through many reckonings with both the benefits and risks of social media, including the potential health and wellness impacts on teenagers. Seattle Public Schools’ recently filed lawsuit against TikTok, Meta, Snap and others alleging a youth mental health crisis caused by social media.
Social media is also facing one of its greatest legal challenges ever, with the Supreme Court poised to review whether Section 230 statute of the Communications Decency Act should provide these companies with immunity from user content liability claims, as has been the case throughout their rise.
So there is good reason for the next big thing in social media to be all about positivity, and here we are again, with social media company Discord announcing the acquisition of Gas this week, a quickly growing social media company designed to promote positive affirmations.
“Gas is all about uplifting and empowering each other through positive affirmations. Its tremendous success shows the opportunity that exists in creating a playful yet meaningful place for young people,” Discord stated in a blog post about the deal. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Gas allows users to anonymously share compliments with one another via polls, or as TheVerge noted in a report on the deal, “The app is designed for anonymous compliments and positive affirmations or, as kids say, gassing your friends up.”
The app has gained increasing popularity among teenagers. In just two months since its August launch, Gas surpassed TikTok and BeReal in Apple’s App Store free app rankings, reaching 1 million daily active users. It was crowned as “the hottest app right now” by The Wall Street Journal. It boasted 30,000 new users per hour in October.
Gas already has had its early issues — it was caught up, unfairly, in a sex trafficking hoax this fall, which forced its founder to respond after three percent of users deleted their accounts.
But Gas has continued to grow as a place for teens to engage with peers, amassing 7.4 million installs.
If you have not heard of Gas, it did not come out of nowhere. Its founder Nikita Bier previously sold tbh, another poll-based app, to Facebook in 2017, but the app was shut down in less than a year due to low usage. Nonetheless, Discord said in the blog post that “Gas’ founders have a proven track record of creating exciting apps and experiences.”
Snapchat’s platform has feature multiple anonymous polling apps, including Yolo and LMK, where users can ask questions to their friends who can then answer anonymously — and also turned out to be far from immune to abuse. Last year, Snap banned anonymous messaging apps.
While anonymous features can pose a specific form of risk to user safety and increase harassment, Gas says it avoids these obstacles by polls consisting of Gas-approved compliments. These compliment prompts prevent users from creating their own polls or sending direct messages, which could include harmful content.
Gas itself explains in its app description that, “Gas is where friends tell you what they love about you. And no, they won’t dunk on you like other anonymous apps. How it works: 1) Join your school 2) Add friends 3) Answer polls 4) Get flames when picked.”
Discord has had its own share of safety issues associated with its success among a younger demographic, with increasing harassment reports on the platform in recent years. The company has been investing heavily to combat this problem, acquiring Sentropy, an AI-based software company focused on fighting abuse and harassment online. Its latest transparency report, published in December 2022, the company said it had disabled 42,458 accounts and removed 14,451 servers for child safety violations during the third quarter of 2022, a 92% decrease in the number of accounts disabled when compared to the previous quarter.
Entering the social app scene in 2015 as a platform for video game players to chat with one another, Discord has been expanding beyond its roots as an alternative to spotty Skype chats for gamers. The two-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company, has moved beyond its predominately gaming-based uses, with a more general use case voice chat platform and live stream capabilities, while also allowing users to monetize their servers.
As social audio boomed, Discord released Stage channels in 2021, giving users a new way to organize and host large audio events. In July, it released Threads, a way to branch a conversation off of a channel’s main feed without removing it from the channel. The company also has premium membership features, allowing creators and community owners to require a subscription to access all or part of their server, tiered perks, and view analytics on member engagement.
Microsoft was reported to have made a bid for the company at one point, though no deal was reached.
Discord, unlike the first generation social media giants, does not make money from advertisements, and that gives it something else in common with Gas beyond a focus on a younger demographic. Gas has gained its almost $7 million in user spending through paid subscription features like “God Mode” which provides users with hints on who gave them compliments.
For the time being, Gas will operate as a standalone app, but this doesn’t rule out the potential for polls to become a new method of communication on Discord.
“We’re always working to create an inclusive world where no one feels like an outsider and we’re excited to welcome Gas to the Discord community as our next step to fulfilling that vision,” Discord said in the blog post.
One of the toughest tasks the companies will find, as many social media apps have before — keeping the story positive.
CNBC is now accepting nominations for the 2023 Disruptor 50 list – our 11th annual look at the most innovative venture-backed companies. Learn more about eligibility and how to submit an application by Friday, Feb. 17.
Amazon said Tuesday it received regulatory approval to begin flying a smaller, quieter version of its delivery drone, the latest step in its long-running efforts to get the futuristic program off the ground.
The company unveiled the new drone, called the MK30, in November 2022. It said then that the MK30, in addition to the other changes, would fly through light rain and have twice the range of earlier models.
Amazon said the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval includes permission to fly the MK30 over longer distances and beyond the visual line of sight of pilots. The agency granted a similar waiver for Amazon’s Prime Air program in May, though that was limited to flights in College Station, Texas, one of the cities where it has been conducting tests.
Alongside the FAA approval, Matt McCardle, head of regulatory affairs for Prime Air, said the company is starting to make drone deliveries Tuesday near Phoenix, Arizona. In April, Amazon said it planned to spin up drone operations in Tolleson, a city west of Phoenix, after it shut down an earlier test site in Lockeford, California. The company will dispatch the drones near one of its warehouses in Tolleson as it looks to integrate Prime Air more closely into its existing logistics network and further speed up deliveries.
An FAA spokesperson said the agency granted Amazon permission to conduct beyond visual line of sight deliveries in Tolleson on Oct. 31.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos first unveiled plans for the ambitious service more than a decade ago, remarking at the time that the program could be up and running within five years. Despite Amazon investing billions of dollars into the program, progress has been slow. Prime Air encountered regulatory hurdles, missed deadlines and had layoffs last year, coinciding with widespread cost-cutting efforts by CEO Andy Jassy. The program also lost some key executives, including its primary liaison with the FAA and its founding leader. Amazon hired former Boeing executive David Carbon to run the operation.
It’s also encountered pushback from some residents in the cities where it’s trialing drone deliveries. Residents in College Station complained about the noise levels enough that it prompted the city’s mayor to mention the concerns in a letter to the FAA, CNBC previously reported. In response, Amazon executives told residents the company would identify a new drone delivery launch site by October 2025.
Amazon isn’t the only company trying to crack delivery by drone. It’s competing with Wing, owned by Google parent Alphabet, UPS, Walmart and a host of startups including Zipline and Matternet.
WATCH: How Amazon’s drone delivery program stacks up to competitors
Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp appears on a Bloomberg television interview during the FoundryCon event in Palo Alto, California, on March 7, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Palantir shares jumped 23% on Tuesday and headed for a record close after the data analytics software maker reported robust third-quarter results and issued uplifting revenue guidance.
The stock reached a high of $51.19, above the prior record of $45.14 reached last week. If the gain holds, it will mark the stock’s biggest jump since Feb. 6, when shares popped 30%.
Revenue climbed 30% to $726 million from a year earlier, topping the $701 million average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. Adjusted earnings per share of 10 cents beat the 9-cent average estimate.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank said in a report that “the beat was driven by better-than-anticipated US Government performance,” boosted by demand for artificial intelligence tools.
“Palantir is among a handful of infrastructure software companies that have started to meaningfully monetize generative AI, where its competitive positioning benefits from longtime investment and deep expertise in complex data integration, and particularly its reputation for data security built into its ontology,” the analysts wrote.
Net income of $143.5 million, or 6 cents per share, was up from $71.5 million, or 3 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago. The company called for fourth-quarter revenue of $767 million to $771 million. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had been looking for $741.4 million.
Palantir is targeting more than $687 million in U.S. commercial revenue for the year, implying about 24% of the total.
Bank of America bumped its price target from $50 to $55 and maintained its buy rating.
“We continue to view the adoption of PLTR’s AI-enabled products and reach in its early days, as more companies realize the time, resource, and cost savings possible,” Bank of America analysts wrote in a note to investors. “In our view, Palantir’s moat as the differentiated agnostic AI-enabler is only growing with each new use-case carrying compounding unit economics.”
— CNBC’s Jordan Novet and Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
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