Snapchat

Snapchat’s First ‘Non-Creepy’ Ad Is For A Horror Movie

Snapchat recently announced that it was getting ads, and it’s followed through on that promise, with the first paid-for ephemeral advertisements landing this weekend. However, I’m not so sure that Snapchat’s made good on its promise for its ads to be ‘non-creepy’, since horror film Ouija was the first subject. The ads slotted in among…

A Third-Party App May Have Leaked Tens of Thousands of Snapchat Photos

Someone is trying to make “The Snappening” happen. Whether they’re trying to make it happen as a nude photo dump or as a hoax is unclear. Named after the recent nude celebrity leak, rumors are circulating that hackers have gained access to stolen Snapchat photos and plan to match the sexually explicit ones up with…

Snapchat Is Getting Ads

Everyone’s favorite way to sext is getting ads. Evan Spiegel, the owner of Snapchat, has explained that untargeted ads are coming to the app “soon.” The Wall Street Journal reports that the ads “will appear within the Snapchat Stories feature,” slotting in among photos and videos shared by users. The advertisements—which will be the first…

Casey Neistat Riffs on How Snapchat Is Murdering Facebook With Youths

To us olds, it might not immediately be apparent why Snapchat is good for anything other than sending people NSFW photos and videos. But to the kids, it’s the only way to communicate. Casey Neistat explains in his latest video. The filmmaker has a wonderful knack for turning everything into a fun video, and this…

Snapchat Is About To Become A Service For “Disappearing News”

Snapchat isn’t the most obvious place you would head to for your daily fix of headlines. But that might soon change. Snapchat is about to become a service for disappearing videos, news articles and ads. The Wall Street Journal reports that the startup has been talking with advertisers and media companies about a service called…

Oh God, A Startup Is Snapchatting the News

There’s a startup called NowThisNews that delivers the news du jour in short videos embedded on their site and mobile apps. But these days, apparently that’s not enough. So the Awl has noticed, now in addition, NowThisNews is sending out news bulletins via Snapchat. Abandon all hope. Their news reels (if you can call them…

Microsoft Research has created aSnapchat clone called Windup, which is available for Windows Phone 8 and 8.1. It lets you share pictures, videos and audio snippets, as well as text—and choose how long your friends get to see them for.

This is why Facebook bought WhatsApp for $16 billion: because its throughput of shared photographs is astronomical, and rising at an insane rate. (See also, the purchase of Instagram and the crazy offer for Snapchat.) [KPCB]

Facebook’s Snapchat Clone Just Got a Little Less Ridiculous

Slingshot, Facebook’s second swing at Snapchat-like ephemera, may be pretty to look at, but until now, it’s suffered from one huge problem: It didn’t make a lick of sense. Thankfully, Facebook’s finally remedied that by getting rid of its absurd reply-to-unlock feature. In other words—you can actually use it to have a normal conversation. Before…

Looks Like Instagram Is Working on a Snapchat Rival

Someone at Instagram has a slippery trigger finger: Some Instagram for Android users are reporting links posted to a “one tap photo messaging app” called Bolt. It sounds an awful lot like a very popular photo-sharing app not owned by Facebook that rhymes with “App Hat.” The link brings you to a dead page at…

Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat Are Turning Into Storefronts

Earlier today, three of the biggest names in social network land—Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat—all announced major pushes towards mobile payments. But it’s not your friends they want to help you funnel money to—it’s advertisers. The biggest problem any social network faces today is turning a profit. If you ask users to pay from the start,…

Snapchat’s Thinking About Getting Into the Mobile Payment Business

It looks like Snapchat, everybody’s favorite disappearing message app, is getting ready to handle mobile payments. This week, the company filed two payments-related trademarks that seem to signal a shift in its business. But don’t get any bright ideas about Snapchat the disappearing money app. There’s probably a simpler explanation. The trademarks themselves are incredibly…

Three Uses For Snapchat That Don’t Involve Sexting

Before we all got distracted by Yo, Snapchat was the app du jour. It’s used by millions, imitated by many, and has something indefinably special at the heart of it. While many people assume Snapchatting involves teenagers passing revealing pictures between themselves—is this true? We really wouldn’t know—there’s actually much more to the app than…

Slingshot’s Designers Say You’re Using It Wrong

Facebook’s new app, Slingshot, is confusing. The premise behind it is that you can send images to your friends—but they won’t be able to see your image until they send one back to you. As a messaging service, it’s flawed. But, according to the app’s designers, it’s not a messaging service. It’s something entirely different.…

Why Snapchat’s Imitators Don’t Work

The last few months have seen a crushing wave of Snapchat imitators, pretenders to the ephemeral throne. And every one of them has completely missed the point. There’s a reason Snapchat’s become so popular, and it’s not just because it was first. Yes, it’s only a vague likeness of real, human interaction, but it’s a…

Facebook Slingshot Hands On: A Less Useful, More Confusing Snapchat

Facebook just unveiled its latest standalone app: Slingshot. It’s a lot like Snapchat, except worse. I hate to say it, but even Poke was more fun than this. Don’t get me wrong. Slingshot is a pretty app, with an original twist. Like Snapchat, it lets you send your friend a photo or video (plus whatever…

Facebook’s Snapchat Competitor Is Finally Here (For Real This Time)

After a false start late last week, Facebook’s Snapchat clone is finally available, on purpose, and will stay so for the foreseeable future, or the end of recorded history, whichever comes first. http://www.sling.me/ https://gizmodo.com/you-can-download-slingshot-facebooks-snapchat-competit-1588228152

Facebook Messenger now has a tap-and-hold video sharing function. Yes, just like Snapchat. What a coincidence!

Snapchat Now Does Video Chat and IM

Snapchat, everybody’s favorite sexting app, has just grown up. Now, to complement its simple self-destructing messages, the iOS and Android apps both handle instant messaging and live video chats. To use them, you just swipe right from the main camera screen to find a list of friends, from where you can send them a message…

Great, Hackers Can Use Snapchat to DoS Attack Your Phone

When it comes to security, this hasn’t been Snapchat’s year. First hackers leaked a massive amount of private user data; then we discovered how dumb easy it is to circumvent Snapchat’s anti-robot feature. Now, cyber security researchers have shown that Snapchat can be used to launch a denial-of-service attack that freezes your smartphone, according to…