Hi folks,
As part of our assignments, we need to help one or more startup by trying their products/services and feedback on it. The first startup I have been focusing on is Snapchat.
Snapchat is pretty well known by everybody know. For people unaware of it, Snapchat is an application used to send pictures to our contacts with a set time limit for how long the recipients can view the Snaps. The application was released 4 years ago. As most of the people, I started to use Snapchat 2 years ago ish.
However, a new function has been released on the application quite recently and I have just started to use it a couple of weeks ago : the Snapchat channels. If you swipe two times to the right in the application, you will have access to 14 different channels.
The Snapchat channels are offering very short videos, pictures and tips on various subjects. The channels are 5 minutes long maximum and change every 24 hours. As part of my interests, I have tried the following channels :
- Tastemade : this is a cooking/baking channel. I can discover new recipes via 1-2 minutes videos on a specific country. For example, yesterday it was Russia. They are also sharing mini-articles that you can read like ‘7 things you did not know about Russia’. I have learnt a lot of things about different countries those last couple of weeks!
- Food Network : Cooking/baking channel again. Pretty different from Tastemade because they are not focused on a specific country but just share random recipes. A bit more articles than videos.
- Cosmopolitans : The gossip press – if you want to be aware day to day of what is happening in famous people’s lives!
- Mashable : the tech channel! They are sharing everyday a nice tech article, highlighting one new app to try out and often offer as well their feedback of a new technology. For instance, it was the new 3D touch or the live video on the Iphone 6S the last 2 days.
My feedback on it : I completely love it! I think Snapchat succeeds in understanding the need of the young generation to get information the kind of information they do want, very rapidly/shortly and when they want it. The fact that you can choose the channel you wanna watch is awesome. Also, if there is anything you are not interested in within the channel, you can just skip it by snapping left – that easy! This is innovation for me in the sense that Snapchat already has a very good idea with the time-set pictures but now try to improve their service by offering the channels now. The subjects are made by real professionals, the image quality/video is awesomely recorded. This is defenitely something that comes into my daily habits now – instead of reading lots of articles for hours or watching TV on a specific time for the news, I can get information pretty easily via Snapchat whenever I want to.
If I had to send them a ‘bad’ feedback, I would maybe try to extend the service to new types of channels (language, culture) that are a bit lacking at the moment. Also, I would try to find a way to be able to share the interestings snaps I have seen in my story or to link it to my facebook. We can only snap it to a specific list of contacts for now and sometimes I would love to share it to all my contacts – which is not possible for the moment.
Give it a try – I am sure you guys will find the right channel for you and enjoy this new way of getting information!
Thanks for reading,
Celine