Facebook Twins Snapchat, Post Abounding Attempts

Snapchat is a multimedia mobile application which was released in the year 2011 established by the former students of Stanford university. This app weaves both private messaging and public content. It includes publications and also live events such as sports and music and also used for creating multimedia messages known as ‘snaps’. It is also known as the fun messaging app.

This snap consists of photos, videos and can be edited to filters, captions and drawings. The updates can be shared publicly to an individual’s timeline where they are visible only for twenty four hours. The folks can save their own snaps before sending them to friends. It is a very low maintenance social media platform.

A recent report says that the app users are sending seven hundred million snaps a day. Due to its instant popularity, Facebook reportedly offered to acquire Snapchat for three billion dollars. But the app’s cofounders declined the cash offer.

Common features of Snap-chat:

  • Snap-chatters: The users of the Snapchat are known as the Snap-chatters.
  • Snaps: The photos or videos are taken with Snapchat. One can send a snap to another snap-chatter, but it can be viewed by the one to ten seconds only then automatically it will disappear forever. To take a photo, open the Snapchat then hit the capture button on the camera screen.
  • Snapback: The recipient’s reply to a snap is known as the snapback.
  • Story: A snap can be broadcasted to the followers. The recipients can view the story an unlimited amount of times in twenty four hours.
  • Scores: This feature is a special equation integrating the number of snaps that one have sent and received, stories posted, and other factors.
  • Snap-code: They are the scannable codes that are located in the center of one’s profile screen. It can be accessed by tapping the ghost icon in the upper centre of the camera screen.
  • Chat: Chat is a feature that lets an individual to directly message other Snap-chatters. One can access the Chat screen by swiping from left to right on the Camera screen. If a person wants to send a message, he/she can tap the ‘create new message’ button in the upper corner to select a friend to chat with.
  • Video Chat: This feature lets the folks to start a live video call. Tap the video record button to start a video chat. There are two options available: ‘Watch’ and ‘Join’.
  • Lenses: Real- time special effects can be added to snaps with lenses. There are many lens options available, if a person wants to use this feature swipe left to select the lens and then tap the capture button to take a snap.
  • Filters: To make the snaps more attractive, one can add colored filters, the current time, local weather, speed overlays or geofilters to the snaps. The users can add more than one filter.
  • Spectacles: This feature was introduced in the year 2016. By using this feature, can record video that automatically save to Snapchat Memories. This Snapchat memory stores all the saved snaps, stories and locked content.
  • Snap-streak: If there are different emojis next to the Snapchat names in the chat screen, that means a person is on Snap-streak, and that person’s friend have snapped each other within twenty four hours for more than one consecutive day.

 Users of Snapchat:

In the present era, everyone uses Snapchat. But the majority of users are teens and adults. Because of its embracing technology, it is popular among the teenagers. The You Tubers, Viners and many celebrities are known to use Snapchat as an alternative means of communicating with their followers.

          Snapchat- Pros:

  • The customers can post questions about any platform and the replies can be given in ‘Live Snapchat’.
  • The authenticated users can share stories, photos, and videos on their own theme.
  • The authorized users can get the information at first hand.
  • As Snapchat is real and non-edited, one can brand their business and to promote a blog in a well organized manner.
  • One can see what is going on behind the scenes and it is very quick and convenient one.
  • At any cost of time, the frequent users won’t miss any updates.

 SnapchatCons:

Inspite of the many advantages, Snapchat has disadvantages too. The major cons are that search function is not available and no sharing or virality. The availability of analytics is limited and hence it is difficult to work out ROI (Return on investment). The total number of views for the person’s snaps can be calculated, but the total number of followers cannot be measured.

Flash- Invented for emerging markets:

An app named Slingshot app, launched by the Facebook failed to meet the success. The Facebook has a launched a new video messaging app called Flash which is only available in Brazil. Here, one can send temporary photos and videos to their friend list.

If an individual has a list of friends on Facebook, then it becomes easy to share still snaps with their contacts. This app is specifically designed for the emerging markets, but the Wi-Fi accessibility is limited and connectivity is weak.

Facebook brags that Flash is ‘less than 25 MB’ in size, which is one-third the size of Snapchat. The features in Flash are more or less similar to that of the Snapchat app. The users should have an account on Facebook to use this video messaging app. There are numerous overlays, masks, chat window, stories feature etc.

The main advantage is that the app does not have any filters or USPs. India, China, Brazil and a few South-East Asian countries do not have as many Snapchat users and this can give a big hit to Facebook Flash.  Flash doesn’t take too much data and that is beneficial in countries with poor connectivity and lack of internet structure.

Will Flash supersede Snapchat in South- East Asian Countries?

If the Flash app can use less data than Snapchat, and if it is light weight then, it can definitely beat Snapchat. The major obstacle is that the people using these applications are concentrated in large cities where internet is not a big issue. Facebook has a huge popularity in even smaller cities and towns, and an app from the same company will definitely attract the citizens of emerging nations. The CEO of Facebook believes that sharing photos will be the future and they are in the right direction. India will also get this app soon and it will become easier to communicate with the folks as it will use less data and space on the phone.

Conclusion:

Social networking has become a norm among the youngsters. Facebook has made a mark for itself. It is just the perfect site for the people who want to get to know people and things around the world. On the other side of the coin, Snapchat has a great interface and looks colorful. It is hard to believe the fact that Facebook has attempted to clone Snapchat. But, that’s the truth which we need to accept. Not once or twice, but almost 13 times and it has failed.

Author Bio:

Anand Rajendran is CEO and Co-Founder of Dectar, best PHP scripts development company located in India. Dectar is a part of Casperon Technologies a leading social and mobile development company which is Developing Uber for X apps for the past 3 years. I’m a Tech geek, Digital marketing expert, Entrepreneur, and Atheist who loves to write everything about PHP Scripts and mobile application development.

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