All the Snapchat users know that once the timer goes down on a picture or a video that a friend sent you, you can never see it again. But thanks to the social network’s move into in-app purchases, users can now buy the ‘replay’ ability.
Currently only available in the US – but soon to reach other parts of the world – the new feature allows users to see three ‘replays’ for the price of $0.99. Presently, Snapchat policy is that any given picture or video can be seen just once, with only one free additional replay each day.
Introducing purchases is Snapchat’s latest departure from the idea of “ephemeral messaging,” which used to be the core of the social service when it was first launched. The initial attraction of Snapchat had a lot to do with the fact that users knew that once you saw their message, no one could view it again.
First feature that started moving away from that concept rolled out in 2013, when replays offered users the ability to choose which one message they wanted to see twice a day.
But even with the one-replay option, millions of Snapchatters said they had a hard time choosing which of the many daily Snaps deserved their so-very-limited number of replays. That’s how replaying someone’s Snap became the equivalent of giving them a compliment.
Second step that chipped even more out of Snapchat’s impermanence was the introduction of Stories, starting October that year. With Snapchat Stories users could upload pictures and video on the app that could be infinitely replayed for the next 24 hours following their publication.
In addition to the in-app purchases, the new update also introduced “lenses,” a feature based on facial recognition technology. If you want to have your face altered in real-time, with some terrifying results, you should give them a go. There are only seven lenses in the first package, but users should expect a larger variety in the future.
Before this update, Snapchat’s core product has remained rather unaltered for a while, with the company focusing on its Snapchat Discover, the service that allows news publishers to upload shareable content directly to the app.
Buzzfeed and Vice, two of the largest players on the market, have brought a nice ad revenue to Snapchat, with adverts selling for roughly 10 cents a view. When views go up to a million per ad each day, and when Snapchat gets half of the sale price, the math looks rather favorable for the company.
Image Source: The Verge