Snapchat announced a host of new features for its users and developers at the Snap Partner Summit 2020. The newly added features are Snap Minis, new Camera Kit, Happening Now, Scan, Local Lenses, Story Replies, Action Bar, and some well-being features of the Snapchat story ads.
The app will also get some game features such as Bitmoji for gamers and Snap’s Augmented Reality Platform. The company announced it would completely revamp the app by including these features.
Snapchat story ads will also entre into media with its Happening Now feature. The app will recommend trending stories from local communities all around the world. “We’ve partnered with some of the most trusted news organizations, like The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Reuters, NBC News, ESPN, NowThis, E! News, Daily Mail, BuzzFeed News and more, to turn updates on the biggest stories,” the Snapchat blog read.
App’s editorial team will be curating the selection of publicly shared snaps captured by the users to showcase in the Happening Now feature.
New features added for the Snap map and Stories will help to navigate the new Snapchat.
Action Bar feature will make it easy to navigate when users open the app. Places will be added to Snap Map which is a personal map that shows spots that are famous in the local community. The place profile of businesses will have the location, address, hours of operations and reviews.
Topics feature is a new way to share things with a Topic sticker like “Life Hacks” which can be browsed by other users to see. Story Replies feature allows replying to Snaps posted by Snap Stars. “Snap Stars can turn Story Replies into stickers and add them to their Stories to power things like Q&A Sessions,” the Snap blog added.
Augmented Reality Platform SnapML
“We’re introducing SnapML, which lets any developer bring their own machine learning models directly into Lens Studio to power Lenses. Now, anyone can create their own Lenses with neural networks, expanding the possibilities for Lenses that can transform the world. We partnered with Wannaby, Prisma, CV2020, and Official Lens Creators on the first SnapML creations,” said the Snap blog.
Local Lenses feature added can be used by the Snapchatters by “Press and Hold” on the camera to unlock Lenses based on what they see in front of them, “Snapchatters can identify 90% of all known plants and trees thanks to PlantSnap.The Snapchat camera now recognizes almost 400 breeds powered by Dog Scanner”. the blog read.
For developers, the app added new features to build with Snapchat. Camera Kit feature will let developers, “ Snapchat’s AR camera to their own apps. Soon on Squad, you’ll be able to add fun Snapchat lenses while you browse, chat, shop, and watch videos together.” Bitmoji is a cross-platform avatar game and using Dynamic Lenses can share custom Lenses to invite their friends for to virtual group hangouts.
In March 2020, Snapchat added a feature called “Here for you” which provide resources for people who search for topics related to mental health. Now the app in its new summit added some more features to the well-being tool. In its blog, the company revealed that they are launching an in-app reporting tools which will help the users to alert the company when they feel that their friends are at risk for self-harm.
“We’re now significantly improving that experience, by immediately showing Snapchatters how they can get connected with emergency services, message a trained counselor through Crisis Text Line, or talk live with someone at the National Suicide Prevention Hotline,” the Snapchat blog read.
All these features will be launched in the United States at first and later will be introduced to other countries in the upcoming year. The app will now change completely and turn in to an all in one service app. Snapchat must be planning to capture its vast user base of 200 million users and turn the app into a service product.