Snapchat

Snapchat the story what is it?  Where did it come from?:

  Snapchat is probably one of my most used and favorite apps that’s has ever been put out on the market. Snapchat got its start back in 2011- 2012 by creators Evan Spiegel, and Bobby Murphy.  started off as an idea of “Picaboo” a “selfie app” where users could send self deleting pictures of real time events that are going on around them with a viewing length of 10 seconds, this app was brought out in around July 2011 on IOS. Then came back out remastered under a different project, of the name “Snapchat” two months later.

  Snapchat started off just being able to send picture messages called “Snaps” then their next move in December 2012 they added the abilities of sending 10 second videos confined to the same file size as a picture to make it easy and accessible to send and receive videos live and in real time. Snapchat improved in 2013 when they did an overall update of the app.  In general, this update included speed and design enhancements such as swipe navigation, improved friend finder and double tap to reply features.  Then shortly after the feature of “snap stories” became a thing, Snap stories allowed users to take there ten second post (pictures, videos) and compile them all into 24 hour chronological storylines for everyone who is following them to be able to see. Around 2015, they added a feature so that you can reply over there snap on their story. Such things as live stories and feeds were created and added as well to the app so that business could live stream events that were taking place such as concerts and shows. These live stories also take other random users snaps that are sent to the live stories feed to show their experiences with the event, a great way to show all aspects of the event from the creators of it to the audience.

  Then in 2014 they made it possible to video chat/call on the app along with direct messaging (text) so not only could you use this app to send quick pictures and videos, you could now use it for those such things. Which meant you didn’t need to use Facebook messenger or Skype anymore to do these things. Then sometime in between this update and the major new one in September 2016 they made it capable for companies such as BuzzFeed, IGN, Daily Mail too post their articles such as “top ten this” and just general native advertisements and click bait blogs along with new products, etc. These advertisements are estimated to be 500,000 to 1,000,000 times a day.

  Then in September of this year there most recent update to the app, they added there first hardware gadget a pair of glasses that have a built-in camera that allows users to take snaps right from their own spectacles and post them to their snap chat. Snapchat has a whole variety of features that I still haven’t touched on such as “Lens” that’s allows you to put a live filter over your face using face detection,

 and “memories” which allows the users to save his own snaps that he/she has taken. Snapchat published stats in May of 2015 saying there where 2 billion videos sent by users a day and of may 2016 Snapchat Raised 1.81 billion in equity offering and achieved almost 10 million daily active users in the U.K alone. Snapchat is very popular with the millennials and the generation before them but has also recently started catching on with even older users who have cell phones.

My Snap Story:

As I said in the opening paragraph Snapchat is one of my favorite social media apps, I personally love the app and I’ve pretty well had it since it came out, getting it around late 2012 early 2013. I’ve seen what the app used to be, to what they have turned it into. The app has so many strengths when it comes to social media, its literally almost at this point a one stop shop app where you can pretty much do anything on it. Even Instagram has recently taken on the way Snapchat has their “stories” done out. You can go on Snapchat now and call, facetime, message, or snap people and if you don’t want to do that you can go on it and take pictures with one of their many filters and save it to your memories or post it as a story, and if you feel like reading an article you just swipe over right and Discover gives you a bunch of different articles to read.

  There’s so much when it comes to Discover giving a whole new aspect to Snapchat completely, users can now answer surveys read articles post in live story feeds and even find new products and give live real time thoughts to these companies about what they think. Snapchat is a great way to keep up with people and meet and start talking to new people because you can actually send your emotions and tone through video unlike text. Snapchats real time 24-hour time frame aspect makes it really engaging to users, content on Snapchat will only be up for 24-hours unless user delete it, making users always having to check there Snapchats for the most recent news and updates. Seeing how engaging Snapchat is, a lot of big named people have gotten their own verified Snapchat accounts where they can post story’s an engage with the everyday user, and us the everyday user get to take a look inside the life of the people we look up to making us feel a little closer to them. Some of these people are really good with this app and creating good client based relationships, my buddy who has been into rapping for years has got a few people he likes to listen to on his Snapchat and he’s after sending them snaps of him rapping or asking a question and these people actually message him back and answer him and his questions and or send him a rap back or tell him to keep up the good work with his own raps. These people in this case I’m referring to would be Necro, Sha Mula, Chase Benji, Anilsyt, many more do it but these are just the people I’ve witnessed with my own two eyes doing it.

 This app has been looked at by a lot as a sexting app but truthfully only 15% of people who report using this app say that they’ve ever used it for sexual purposes, most people that use this app use it for what it’s meant for to take stupid selfie photos and catch 10 second snap shots of their daily lives and put it up for others to see. Whenever I was using Snapchat or anyone of the “bys” I was around we’d mostly be using it to pretty much mess with each other. It was an everyday challenge of who was going to get one of the slyest and embarrassing photo on their Snapchat story, all in good fun never taking it way too far. But those days are over.  Now a days I use it to follow people I used to go to high school with to see where their lives are taking them. I also use it like my friends to follow celebs and business people to get insight and pointers from them and also just to see what it’s like in their daily lives. Snapchat does have some problems like the cyberbullying and the creep aspect to it, but all social media plat forms have that. Another problem being that they sort of lied in the beginning that the snap just disappears to never come back. They’ve also put out some really dumb and unsafe filters out for use such as the filter that allowed users to track how fast they are going causing a few car accidents with people using the app. But other than that, this app to me is a good thing and a revolutionary platform in which social media will be copying for a while.