Articles about Snapchat

Messaging apps are not just about chatting these days. Every player that counts wants to bring something extra to the table to keep users hooked and attract new ones in the process. WhatsApp is no different, as it is now rolling out an updated status feature that lets users share more than just basic messages.

"We are excited to announce that, coinciding with WhatsApp's eight birthday on February 24, we are reinventing the status feature", says WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum. The update gives users the option to also share photos and videos.

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The media, analyst and investor communities clearly have a love-hate relationship with Snapchat. In the run-up to its IPO, it was hailed as the next great technology company (in part due to Snap's own communication efforts). And now that its S-1 is out, the commentary has turned quite negative. As always, the truth is somewhere in the middle and public filings paint a very clear picture of why that is.

The chart at the top of this post shows quarterly revenue for Snap compared with that of Twitter and Facebook, aligned by founding year (sourced from their respective IPO prospectuses). The first observation is that Snap is going public earlier in its lifecycle than both Facebook and Twitter. Of course, this is partially offset by the fact that Snap was conceived during the "post-PC" smartphone revolution, which accelerated consumer adoption cycles, especially for social media. That said, Snap's advertiser adoption seems to be growing at roughly as the same pace as its predecessors (at the same point in their respective lifecycles), which is more relevant for a revenue comparison. Taking these factors and the chart into account, it looks like Snap's revenue growth is slightly behind Facebook's pace and well ahead of Twitter's.

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Brexit was supposed to terrify companies out of doing business in the UK, and in some instances this has been true. But Snapchat is bucking the trend, opting to set up its international headquarters not in Ireland (as many companies do to avoid huge tax bills), but in the UK.

Snap Inc, the company behind SnapChat, will open its London offices under the name Snap Group Limited. The company says it chose the UK capital because of its "strong creative industries", and the move will be seen by many as a something of a coup for post-EU referendum Britain.

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Until concerns were raised about data sharing with Facebook to help deliver targeted ads, WhatsApp was seen as the messaging tool of choice for those concerned about privacy. As well as offering encrypted messaging, WhatsApp has always been one of the more stripped back messaging apps out there -- but no more.

Bowing to pressure to fit in with the crowd and offer the same features as the likes of SnapChat, WhatsApp is adding photo and video editing and enhancement tools. The ability to add emoji to photos, or draw and write on images are just two new options that are rolling out now.

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Snapchat today makes two big announcements, the first of which is that it is no longer called Snapchat. The company is starting to branch out into products and services beyond the Snapchat app and therefore decided it is time to drop 'chat' from the name. Snap Inc is the new company name.

The second announcement is a new product called Spectacles. These are sunglasses with an integrated video camera offering a 115-degree field of view. There's no word on exactly when it will be released, but the marketing machine is already in motion, building up momentum and drumming up interest.

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Football (not soccer) is one of the most popular sports in the United States. Whether it is college or professional, Americans love to spectate it. Not only do they watch the games, but plan their days around them too -- choosing the right snacks and beverages is very important.

Also wildly popular lately is Snapchat. Millennials are absolutely gaga over the app, and last year, the National Football League began utilizing it. Today, the NFL announces that it will be leveraging the 'Discover' feature for the upcoming season. While this extended partnership is certainly a 'touchdown' for Snapchat, the National Football League could benefit greatly too.

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Facebook is a social network that I use begrudgingly, but it sometimes does have value in my life. For instance, its "Memories" feature periodically shows me photos from the past on their anniversary of being uploaded. Sometimes a now-deceased relative pops up and it feels like a "hello" from heaven. It's a killer feature.

Unfortunately for Mark Zuckerberg and company, rival attention-thief Snapchat seems to be borrowing this feature a bit. Also called "Memories", it too aims to leverage photos -- plus videos -- as memories, but in a more robust way. Will millennial users want such a thing?

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The amount of time people spent in apps of social media networks in the first three months of 2016, in nine major countries in the world, has dropped "dramatically", a new report by digital market intelligence company SimilarWeb says.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat have all seen significant drops in the amount of time people in the US, UK, Germany, Spain, Australia, India, South Africa, Brazil and Spain have spent in Q1 2016, compared to the same period a year before.

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The UK culture minister, Ed Vaizey, has warned that people who share screenshots of Snapchat messages without permission are breaking the law. Snapchat is characterized by its self-destructing messages that automatically delete after a short time.

The Conservative politician warned that anyone sharing screenshots of messages without consent could be sued and could face a prison sentence. If the content was of a sexual nature, it could result in a lengthier sentence.

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A new report on the global state of social media confirms what everyone’s been talking about lately -- Twitter is struggling and Instagram is taking full advantage of it.

The report, entitled simply "Social", is the product of GlobalWebIndex, and it is a compilation of the latest trends in social networking.

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There's no small amount of controversy that swirls around Snapchat, as people swear it's used for all sorts of bad things. In truth, it probably isn't, people just send messages and images, most of which aren't the least controversial. But now the company has another problem, though this one doesn't involve anything lurid.

Instead it's actually the company's employees who were compromised and the service is attempting to apologize for this breach.

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As a dude in his 30's, I am a bit lost when it comes to Snapchat. Believe it or not, I have created a profile on the social network, and even managed to get a good number of folks to follow me. Unfortunately, I find the entire affair ponderous -- it is not particularly rewarding, nor fun for me. Snapchat is seemingly an unorganized mess. Maybe I just need to give it more time, but I digress.

One of the best features of the curious service, however, are the Geofilters. If you aren't familiar, by leveraging GPS, Snapchat can provide overlays for your images based on location. Today, the company is taking it a step further with really cool 'On-Demand Geofilters'.

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As often happens, the internet went nuts over the weekend. The cause? A change to Snapchat's privacy policy. Rumors spread like a disease that the blink-and-you'll-miss-it messaging service was not only storing users' posts, but also taking ownership of them.

Snapchat has responded to the public outcry, explaining that this is simply not the case. But having spread around the world via mainstream media, the rumor may be hard to quash -- perhaps the app's Ghostface Chillah mascot spooked people over Halloween.

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Forbes today unveiled its inaugural 100 Richest People in Tech list. Comprising 100 billionaires, the top of the chart is dominated by all of the names you would expect to see -- Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Page take the top five slots.

It's not just the names that are familiar. The US is the dominant country in the chart, with more than half of the list filled by American billionaires. The image of California as being the center of the world of technology is borne out by the fact that 49 of the top 100 hail from the western state. So, yes, Bill Gates tops the charts with $79.6 billion, but where are the other big names?

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Yahoo is making a first step in the messaging world, with the launch of LiveText for iOS and Android. The app will be available in North America and Europe, following a brief test in Hong Kong and Taiwan last month.

The messaging app is similar to Snapchat, with an image or video and superimposed text. When video streaming is unavailable, LiveText will offer a text only option. Interestingly, the video will be silent, meaning no audio playback between the two recipients.

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