Snapchat may not yet have the following of the other more established players in the social space, yet its growth continues as it becomes more influential through its capacity to introduce new innovations that keep the app ahead of the game. Every week there seems to be new features to try out.
Snapchat first made waves with content that would disappear after 10 seconds or less. But where many other apps have hung their hat on their initial premise, and have been unable to hold that initial attention as a result, Snapchat’s gone on to introduce additional, industry-leading functions to keep their primarily young audience base coming back for more – and tapping into an arena where brands need to play.
A bit of history: They introduced Stories in late 2013, geofilters in mid 2014 and the lenses in September 2015. Just last month, Snapchat announced a major revamp of their messaging features. In my opinion, their ability to remain loyal and responsive to their audience needs and interests, and continuously deliver on new features to them, is what keeps the app top of mind, and keeps their users glued to their devices.
Snapchat’s 100 million daily active users are now contributing more than eight billion video views on the platform every day. Per day.
And now… the introduction of new emoji stickers for videos.
The stickers are like any other emoji, but they move and scale in proportion to the actual video. It’s odd looking – but then again, this is the platform that popularized “rainbow vomit.” Am I right?
Video stickers are interesting and interactive – and you can immediately see how this new feature will be popular among Snapchat’s fan base. Oh, you kids!
According to TechCrunch, Eitan Pilipski, an engineer who Snapchat recently recruited from augmented reality company Vuforia assisted in its development. Vuforia is a shop that strives to help brands generate vision-based data and computing, including mapping 3-D objects into real-world video – for example, enabling gamers to overlay 3-D objects into a physical space via their tablet device.
If Snapchat’s other innovations are anything to go by, I’d expect to see other platforms looking to implement similar in the near future, especially if the option continues to be popular among Snapchat’s user base. And, this all coming on the heels of this week’s f8 Conference with the use of bots, AR, VR, and AI, of course.
So, why have I started using Snapchat?
[You can ‘Snap’ me at hotleadsnaps]
Understanding the way people communicate, share news, endorse brands, products and services, and stay engaged is a passion of mine. And Snapchat’s ability to stay on trend and avoid becoming another teen fad that dies out truly does keep my interest. Testing, using, adopting and understanding the latest technology and features is the best way to understand how people will use it, behave around it, and in the end – think of it.
