SnapChat - News, Features, and Slideshows

Features

• How Snap is caving in to post-IPO pressures

  Snap is making itself accountable to shareholders by reprioritizing its decisions for growth. These changes impact company culture and the entire user experience.

• Will Facebook putting ‘Stories’ everywhere crack SnapChat?

  Facebook has replicated a core feature of Snapchat and delivered a nearly identical version of Stories to all four of its major apps. Some call it copycatting. Others say it's just good business.

• 5 things you need to know about Snap’s IPO

  Snap is preparing for one of the most anticipated IPOs in years. The company revealed some surprises and important details about its business in a new filing.

• What Snap can learn from Twitter ahead its IPO

  Snap and its Snapchat app are the talk of the tech town today, but the company has not yet proven its worth to Wall Street. If Snap doesn't want to become the next Twitter after its upcoming IPO, it will have to avoid Twitter's mistakes.

• Why Snapchat's Memories broadens snap appeal

  A new feature from Snapchat, called Memories, should broaden its appeal by making it easier for you to preserve and curate the content you share, but the company's go-to disappearing 'snaps' live on.

• How Snapchat paves the way for future of location marketing

  Snapchat has made location a standout feature of its social network. The company's geofilters and live stories curated for specific locations demonstrate the importance of place in social media, and its campaign to capitalize on location could also have lasting effects on digital marketing.

• 6 ways to reduce the security risk of graduate hires

  Newly hired college grads are a particular security risk to your organization, and special measures need to be taken to manage this "graduate risk."

• Two Snapchat features you probably don't know about

  Many social media apps have features that show up when you swipe in different directions, or functionality that isn't visible at first glance. But Snapchat might have ‘em all beat because it has a handful of hidden features and gestures that are only discovered through frequent usage or word of mouth. Frequent users of Snapchat may have noticed several places within the app that display numbers and emoticons, but most people either don't know these features exist or don't know what they mean.

• The worst thing about tech bubbles isn't what you may think

  You may recall how the last tech bubble 15 years ago resulted in staggering market losses, numerous failed start-ups and increasing IT unemployment. Less noticed was the bubble's eerie correlation to undergraduate enrollments in computer science.

• How big banks use tech to attract savvy consumers

  Today it's easy to transfer money, make payments, and buy goods and services in countless ways outside the walls of a bank or retailer. In fact, physical visits to banks are down 30 percent since last year, and the use of mobile banking apps is up 33 percent, according to a new survey from Chase. Banks are embracing new technologies and evolving consumer habits to engage the next generation of customers.

• Why Apple rules UX, its native iOS apps suck, and that's OK

  Every iPhone Apple sells today ships with 32 native applications but few, if any, are considered best in class. It may seem like Apple has lost its edge on mobile apps and software design, but the company's primary mission to sell hardware certainly hasn't suffered as a result. Indeed, the Apple experience -- a polished user interface married with premium hardware -- is as much about looks as functionality, and the technology ecosystem Apple has built continues to grow and mature.

• Pro sports teams look to social video to score big with fans

  Following your favorite professional sports team before and after games -- and beyond the nightly sports broadcast -- has never been easier. Social video apps, such as Periscope, Meerkat, Vine, Snapchat and Instagram, are disrupting the traditional content distribution models of teams, TV networks and radio stations. While the transformation is already riddled with concerns over content rights, it represents a valuable opportunity for sports organizations to engage and interact with fans, particularly younger generations.

• Social media sites still don't do enough to combat abuse

  Every day, countless individuals and groups are victimized on social networks. The abusers, detached and cloaked in anonymity, often take on different personas as they shame, troll, incite and denigrate others with relative impunity. The ramifications can be devastating and, until recently, the majority of social media companies failed to acknowledge -- let alone confront -- the vulgarity and vicious threats that fly so freely on their platforms.

• Can Snapchat, Instagram and Pinterest help marketers reach millennials?

  Snapchat, Instagram and Pinterest arrived on the social scene after Facebook and Twitter, but they quickly made their marks, especially among millennials. After reaching critical mass, the three companies are attempting to monetize their services by rolling out new features for advertisers. Select large, global brands, including McDonald's, are testing the new features and could be role models for other marketers interested in the apps. However, all three services are still relatively young, and it might be too early to tell if ad campaigns are worth the investment.

• Social, messaging apps struggle with decision to 'bundle' or 'unbundle'

  To "bundle" or not to bundle, that is the challenge social media and messaging services wrestle with these days. (Or at least one of the challenges.) The answer is not a simple one because trends change, and what works today may not work as well tomorrow.