Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Snapchat Targets News Discovery With New Feature

Venice, California-based Snapchat--already an indispensable communications tool for the always-on, mobile generation--is looking to become an even more important part of its user's lives, with a new feature it calls Discover. Snapchat launched its new tool on Tuesday, saying that its new feature is a collaboration with "world-class leaders in media" to put the "narrative first"--tapping into the knowledge of professional editors and artists.

Snapchat said the feature is "not social media", but instead helps to determine what's important based on editors, not what's most recent or more popular. Snapchat, in its launch video, highlighted content from sources such as National Geographic, ABC, Yahoo News, People, the Daily Mail, CNN, the Food Network, and others. The new tool might help Snapchat become a serious player in directing young, mobile users to professional news sources. Studies have found that users are now strongly turning to social media instead of traditional news sources for their information. Launch video embed below

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