Microsoft adds free community feature to Teams to compete with Facebook and Discord

Microsoft is launching a community feature for its Microsoft Teams service. The new Communities feature will allow groups to use Teams calendar, meeting and chat features.

Features such as group chat, calling, and file and photo sharing are supported in Communities, and groups will also be able to use a shared calendar (which includes Google Calendar integration) to organize community events.

The feature is mainly aimed at virtual communities for small businesses and simple groups like car pools for colleagues to organize transportation. Similar features are available in many other services, like Facebook, Discord or WhatsApp, so Microsoft is entering a crowded market, but the company is confident that it has something to offer users.

Communities in Teams could help fill a big gap for Microsoft, but right now they are still "raw" and the feature set looks pretty simple. Unlike Discord, you can't just start an ongoing call with your online group and the communities feature in Teams looks more structured around a rigid form of organization.

Source: The Verge