Snapchat introduced two new features Tuesday for users to embed content on their profiles or stories into a website. The social media platform added web embeds for its Lenses, Spotlight videos, public stories and public profiles for users to share an article or website with their followers easily.
Snapchat says the features will allow users to “express themselves, live in the moment, and learn about the world around them — whether adding a Lens to a Snap, posting to Stories, Spotlight, or the Snap Map, and more,” according to a news release.
Snapchat’s new embed feature will allow users to copy the code for their public story, spotlight video or lenses by selecting the embed button under the share options. The feature will automatically copy the code, enabling the user to open it on their computer browser or Snapchat.com site to “link seamlessly to both.”
Alongside its embed option, Snapchat rolled out an OpenAI-powered feature to allow users to extend the reach of their snaps to a wider area. The company launched an AI feature last February to add ChatGPT-powered AI to chat within the app.
The OpenAI feature is currently available for Snapchat Plus subscribers who pay $US3.99 per month to access Snapchat’s feature launches before anyone else.
The company rolled out Snapcha Plus in June 2022 after reporting a significant drop in sales for its first quarter last year. At the time, Snapchat’s SVP of Product, Jacob Andreou, told The Verge that it was geared toward “the people who spend most of their time communicating with their closest friends on Snap.” However, he told the outlet that he didn’t expect Snapchat+ to become a “material new revenue source.”
In an internal memo to employees last week, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said his goal is to reach at least 475 million daily users by the end of the fourth quarter in 2024 and aims to have 14 million Snapchat+ subscribers, The Verge’s Alex Heath reported on X, formerly called Twitter. Spiegel’s goals are a far cry from the reported five million Snapchat+ subscribers the company has as of September, although that number is up from four million in late June and three million in mid-April.
Snapchat reported 397 million daily active users according to its second quarterly report, marking an increase of only 50,000 daily active users from 2022, according to Statista. The company reported an overall revenue decrease of 4% in its Q2 performance report but says it garnered an increase of 8% in revenue quarter-over-quarter this year.
“We made progress diversifying our revenue through Snapchat+, our subscription service that offers exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features, which now has more than 4 million subscribers,” the Q2 report said.
It added that Spotlight’s number of active users per month exceeded 400 million, and said it will “continue to improve and grow Spotlight by investing in more advanced ML models and better integrating Spotlight into the overall Snapchat experience.”
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