Venice, California – Snapchat Inc. released on Monday ‘Story Explorer’, a feature that allows users to view ‘Stories’ from other people’s perspectives.
More algorithms for creating and monitoring content were added to improve the app’s storytelling platform. The new feature is only available in Los Angeles and New York, but will be soon activated globally, as the firm claims to have more than 100 million daily active users.
“It’s the first time you’ll be able to experience that incredible game-winning dunk from thousands of perspectives throughout the stadium – or feel like you’re right there on the scene when breaking news unfolds”, the company stated in a blog post.
For instance, if a user is watching a Snapchat Story of a concert and wants to see it from another perspective, the app will ask him to ‘explore’ the moment to get a deeper insight of the event. The user will have access to a series of related pictures and videos that were taken and shared at the same location by other people.
However, Snapchat staff will still be selecting the Stories highlighted in Live Story, which is a list of content shared by users. These ‘snaps’ are only available to watch for 24 hours. To achieve this, the firm is taking advantage of artificial intelligence and a series of computers using advanced software in order to choose the content displayed in Story Explorer.
Snapchat CEO, Evan Spiegel, has been insisting on the idea that human editors play an essential role, saying that data cannot solve everything. He affirms that human editors’ results outweigh data delivering. Moreover, Spiegel said that strong editors help create high quality content on Snapchat’s Discover network.
According to the International Business Times, more than 6 billion videos are viewed on Snapchat each day and Story Explorer could certainly broaden that number, competing with Twitter’s Moments feature. Facebook boasts 8 million video views per day, as reported by the social media firm earlier in November.
Snapchat is used by more than 60 percent of users in the age range from 13 to 34 year-old in the U.S. Spiegel pointed out that the new feature could expand Snapchat’s reach and get older people to use the app even if they are not interested in sharing personal moments, since they will be attracted by the news browsing facility. The app is showing an evolution from a simply visual messaging app to a forum of breaking news and live events.
Source: Los Angeles Times