‘Snapchat’ Goes Corporate; Users Become Lower Priority

“Snapchat” has just unveiled their newly redesigned setup, and it’s clear that the popular social media platform is favoring corporations with the new features. As the Los Angeles Times pointed out, not only is “Live Stories” now lower on the screen, the advertising for companies that have a revenue-sharing partnership with Snapchat now have bigger logos. More than that, the stories made by users are now bundled up alongside stories made by giant corporations.

Before the change, publishers were given simplified logos which users would have to press in order to see the content that said publishers were offering. Now, the logos have increased in size, the content have mini headlines, and they can feature whatever image they want.

To be fair, the redesign does make the interface look neater and users can now more easily distinguish which stories are what. However, there is no telling just how much this design affects viewership on certain materials since apparently, Snapchat never tested the design in terms of reader effect before launching it.

Among the corporations that have stakes in the social media platform include “CNN,” “Tastemade,” and “ESPN.” These corporations recently complained that they were not reaching as many of the 100 million users of “Snapchat” as they were led to believe. The bigger focus on the publishers with the new design is likely a reaction to this complaint.

Adweek explains as much when they wrote that the redesign was to “get people to view more content from publishers alongside user-generated content from their friends.” The move has certainly garnered the approval of publishers, with the head of programming at Tastemade, Oren Katzeff telling Adweek that the move was a step in the right direction.

"With the product change, it takes things to the next level in really allowing us to showcase a little bit of a teaser of the look and feel of what's to come in that edition," he said.