Why We're Loving Snapchat's New Discover Feature
Good news, everyone — Snapchat isn’t just for sending selfies and nudies anymore (c’mon, you know you’ve all done it at least once). It’s actually become competitive with Facebook and Twitter as a social platform to consume news.
The app unveiled its newest feature called Discover on January 27. Although Snapchat claims, “This is not social media,” it basically still is.
Snapchat has partnered with editorial teams from CNN, Comedy Central, Cosmopolitan, Daily Mail, ESPN, Food Network, National Geographic, People, VICE, Yahoo! News, and Warner Music Group to deliver the most important news of the day. As Snapchat says, “We count on editors and artists, not clicks and shares, to determine what’s important.” Regardless, we all know editors are really deeming what’s “important” by analyzing clicks, shares, views and traffic.
Whatever Snapchat wants to consider Discover to be, it is one thing, and that is pretty freaking awesome. It’s an incredibly smart way to bring news to people that has never been done before.
When users open Snapchat, with two easy swipes to the left, they are greeted by the Discover homepage. There, they can click any of the 11 brands to see unique editorial content not only with text, but full screen photos and videos.
Some people may ask, “Wait. How does this follow Snapchat’s original phenomenon of clicking a photo or video and then it disappears forever?” It does. After 24 hours, the story of content from the brands disappears (but not forever, since you can always go back to the original website to see more). The next day, a whole new story of content is available for users.
On Twitter and Facebook (where brands, magazines, and media organizations promote absolutely everything on their websites) it can be tedious to sift through all of the news in your feed. Plus, it can be even harder to determine what stories are most important, or actually worth clicking on. But now, with just a few swipes, Snapchat’s Discover fixes that problem.
Art by Shawna Rabbas