Snapchat loses its head for content

Snapchat’s Vice President of Content Nick Bell is stepping down from his position. Bell posted a memo to his staff confirming his departure. It didn’t say why he was leaving though. Bell, who has been with Snap for the past five years, was in charge of helping the company’s media partners produce original content that appears in the Discover section of the app. And while it isn’t clear how successful this section has been, Bell’s departure suggests it hasn’t been as popular as expected. He will be replaced by Jared Grusd, who was appointed last month as Snapchat’s chief strategy officer.

Source: Engadget

Snapchat comes to the desktop with Snap Camera

Before you get ahead of yourself, Snapchat coming to the desktop isn’t the same as its mobile counterpart. Instead, Snap Camera is designed to add custom lenses to other video conferencing and social desktop apps, such as Twitch, Skype, and YouTube. The free app is coming to Windows 10 and macOS and is designed to run in the background as a camera output. Through the app, you get access to “thousands” of lenses, which is accessible via a gallery within the app. You don’t need a Snapchat account to use it.

Twitch users seem to get a special feature though as broadcasters and viewers can unlock special Snap Camera lenses in broadcasts by scanning QR codes. Some of these lenses include faces of characters from games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and League of Legends. The minimum system requirements you’ll need to get Snap Camera running include a PC or Mac with an Intel Core i3 processor clocked at least 2.5GHz or an AMD Phenom II clocked at 2.6GHz, 4GB of RAM, and a screen resolution of 1,280 x 768 or higher.

Source: Digital Trends

Guess you can take sillier photos of your cat on Snapchat now

Snapchat filters can be fun and weird or a mix of both. If you already take silly pictures of your kitty, this new update might be something you’d appreciate. Snapchat just rolled out Cat Lenses, which lets you add everything from unicorn horns, googly eyes, to toast hats. TechCrunch points out this seems to be built on the object recognition system the social network rolled out last year, which recommends filters based on the objects it recognizes are in frame.

Facebook and Messenger Stories reach 300 million daily active users

Looks like Snapchat isn’t just competing with Facebook-owned Instagram. Facebook just announced that its own Facebook and Messenger Stories have now reached 300 million daily active users. A user counts as one person, so this means they won’t be counted twice. Facebook didn’t specify the breakdown between the apps though, but it must be noted that Facebook Story is automatically posted to Messenger. At the moment, Snapchat gets 188 million daily active users.

During the same announcement, Facebook has announced it will start rolling out ads in Facebook Stories similar to how Instagram Stories ads work.

Source: CNBC