Snapchat – the App that keeps giving….
Written By: Heather Poliwoda, Business Development Manager
I have a 13 year old daughter that has been using Snapchat since its inception. She is on it day and night and I am tired of watching her take selfies on a constant basis so that she can share every facial expression she makes with her friends! She even signed me up without my knowledge, which did eventually get me into using it on occasion :-).
Snapchat was launched out of a college fraternity in 2011 as an application for friends to send annotated photos — mostly selfies — to each other. The photos or videos disappear a few seconds after the recipient views them. Since then, the company has added a slew of new features to entice users, letting them make their own “story” posts for all of their friends to see.
Those kids must know something that I don’t know as Snapchat just went from nothing in 2011 to a 19 billion valuation! Facebook even offered to buy Snapchat for a few billion dollars but the offer was quickly turned down. Some people thought Snapchat and its CEO Evan Spiegel, now 24, were insane. Others thought it was a brilliantly gutsy move to build a great company alone. If only I had this idea!
Now, Snapchat is doubling down and investing in new features and functionality to expand its user base and to create more traction too. Recently they added functionality that allows users to play music from their phones while filming a video. The ability to add music has been a much-requested feature by Snapchat users for some time now. Thanks to this update, the ultimate sharing app no longer pauses whatever track is playing while it captures a few seconds of video footage. Snapchat’s update will let you record music from any music app, and reduces the need for a second audio source to record music from. The update is available now for iOS devices, and should make its debut for Android soon enough.
Low and behold, just when you thought they covered everything, Snapchat also created a fast and easy way for Snapchatters to exchange money within the Chat feature. Once Snapchat users have linked their debit card in the app, they can send Snapcash to anyone in their contact list who is eligible to receive Snapcash – lending money to friends via an app hmmmm this spells DANGER to me but I’m sure many teenagers will love this feature!
I am scared to think what the newest features of Snapchat could possibly be! Maybe I will be able to start my car with Snapchat in the future by snapping a picture of my key – who knows what could happen!
