For over four years, the mobile messaging application, Snapchat, has connected users through photo and video conversations. With three easy steps – “snap a photo or video, add a caption, and send it to a friend” – the popular application has changed the way messaging works.
While users can select who they receive and send content to, they can also view “Stories,” or public conversations, from those they chose to follow, and more recently, from advertisers. The Snapchat team has even used the platform to live stream major tech conferences, film festivals, and more.
On January 27, Snapchat released an update to all users. The update, sent from “Team Snapchat,” introduced a new feature, Discover. According to the Snapchat blog, “Discover is a new way to explore Stories from different editorial teams”; the teams include CNN, Comedy Central, Cosmopolitan, Daily Mail, ESPN, Food Network, National Geographic, People, Vice, Yahoo! News, and Warner Music Group.
By clicking on one of the editorial teams, the user is able to see articles, videos, and photos that are produced specifically for the app. The Stories are refreshed with new content every 24 hours.
Discover presents a new direction for Snapchat and content distribution. For many millennials, social media has become the primary source for news and information. In fact, a “recent Business Wire survey revealed that 60% of US millennials depend on social media to keep up-to-date with current affairs.”(The Guardian)
While “social media companies tell us what to read based on what’s most recent or most popular…[Snapchat] counts on editors and artists, not clicks and shares, to determine what’s important.” This gives the artists more leverage to engage a generation, who get most of their information from social media, and deliver the content they want them to see and read.
Because of the large audience, many are referring to Snapchat’s strategy as a modern day portal, like MSN and Yahoo where users are being funneled “to content created by a small set of preordained partners. Also, like the portals it is asking advertisers to pay top dollar to put up miniature billboards along these highways.” (WSJ)
The launch of the Discover feature may be a way for the company to start making real revenue or to simply engage users on the app for more than sharing videos and photos.
Want to learn more about how the Discover feature works? Take a look at the video below.
