Snap Inc unveiled a flurry of new features and products at its partner summit on Thursday. The Santa Monica company held its event virtually this year due to the coronavirus.
Chief Executive Evan Spiegel kicked things off with brief remarks, including an announcement that Snap is partnering with Headspace, also based in Santa Monica.
"Soon, directly in Snapchat, Headspace will offer meditations and tools that help Snapchatters check in with their friends and family, and stay healthy," Spiegel said.
Yesterday, Headspace closed a $47.7 million raise, part of their Series C that was $53 million in equity and $40 million in debt.
Spiegel also noted that the Snap app will soon feature a new toolbar with tabs for chat, maps, camera, friends and its Discover platform.
Much of the presentation centered around AR, which the company has been building on for eight years. That work shows up on Snap's app in the form of "lenses," which overlay digital features onto a camera's subject. Lenses are developed by Snap and also by independent users.
Snap claims about 1 million lenses are available in total and that over 170 million users engage with them on a daily basis, nearly 30 times each day.
A procession of Snap executives followed Spiegel in rapid succession, introducing new features and partnerships related to their divisions. Here are a few of the highlights:
Snap's AR Lenses Get Supercharged
Snap's Lens Studio, a desktop app for third-party developers and artists to develop their own lenses, will now allow developers to upload their code into the studio platform and use their own machine learning models to create lens designs.
New "local lenses", meanwhile, will use 360 image capture, user snaps, and other data in conjunction with 3D-reconstruction, machine learning and distributed cloud computing technology to "build a representation of the physical world...and map whole city blocks", allowing a new level of AR mapping onto users' surroundings.
Snap's scanning feature will soon enable users to point their cameras at plants, dogs, nutritional labels and brands to get more information, such as the type of plant, dog breed, health information and company histories. Scan will also begin accommodating voice activation. Users will be able to ask Snapchat to add on AR features like a new hot-pink hairdo or a cuddly bearhug.
"Today Scan helps you learn more about what you're seeing in front of you," a Snap executive said. "Tomorrow, it will give you results based on what you're saying."
Snap's Discover Platform Inks New Partnerships with Disney, ESPN and Sports Leagues
Snap announced expanded partnerships with Disney, ESPN, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, the NBA and the NFL for its Discover platform. These multi-year deals will reportedly include shows repurposed for mobile viewing, original content, and highlights.
The company also introduced Happening Now, "aimed to be the fastest way for Snapchatters to consume breaking news." Updates from partners including the Washington Post, Reuters and Bloomberg will appear in mobile-friendly format.
Snap announced several new shows as well, including unscripted, scripted and docuseries formats. It also renewed four original series.
Snap Ramps Up Integration With Brands and Companies
Snap Minis, designed by third-party developers, are new utility features that integrate into Snap users' chat windows. As The Information reported last month, this functionality resembles Chinese chat platform WeChat, which takes a cut of in-app purchases. In an interview with The Verge, Spiegel explained that Minis represent Snap's expansion into e-commerce.
The initial slate of Minis includes partnerships with L.A.-based Atom Tickets, which will make it easier for Snap users to plan a group movie theater outing, and L.A.-based Mammoth Media, which will allow users to share predictions with their friends. Quick meditations from Headspace, flashcards for studying from Saturn Technologies, and coordination planning for Coachella are also among the new Mini features.
The Next Small Thing from Snapchat...Minis! | Snap Partner Summit 2020
Minis will begin to roll out next month, the company said.
Separately, Snap will also allow other applications to incorporate its AR tech.
"We built one of the world's most powerful AR cameras so you don't have to," an executive said.
Apps that will integrate Snap's AR functionality include Triller, which allows users to create their own music videos; MLB's Ballpark app, wherein teams will offer customized lenses for fans; and a new app from Nike that challenges users to reach their fitness and wellness goals.
And through "dynamic lenses," Snapchat will import lenses from other apps, including Houseparty and Yahoo! Fantasy Sports.
Snap's Maps Functionality Allows Friends to Find Each Other and Local Businesses
"In an effort to help out local businesses," Spiegel said, "we're rolling out Places on the Snap Map, highlighting places that are popular with our community and easily allowing the places we love to let people know they're open for business."
Snap Unveils A New Slate of Games
Finally, Snap announced several third-party games that will now allow users to bring in their Bitmoji digital avatars, including Scrabble Go, developed by Culver City-based Scopely Inc.
Snap also introduced 10 new games that will be available on its platform. Bitmoji Paint, for example, designed by Snap's internal studio, "is a global canvas where millions of players in the Snapchat community come together to contribute to one massive collage," an executive described.
Spiegel returned to the stage to close out the keynote section of the summit before it dispersed into several virtual rooms to elaborate on specific announcements.
"We believe that the Snapchat generation will help create a world built on real friendship, shared success, positivity and possibility – putting people, the environment and our values first," he said in his closing remarks. "We are all kind, smart and creative and we will build a brighter future together."
The summit comes as Snap has found itself at the center of a fraught back-and-forth with the president. Earlier this month, the self-described camera company made headlines by deciding to stop promoting President Donald Trump's account on its Discover platform, where users watch Snap-curated content. The company did not directly address the issue on Thursday.
In response to Snap's announcements, Credit Suisse wrote that it is "feeling incrementally more optimistic about the company's ability to maintain or even gain time spent with its user base."
Snap's stock fell over 7% on the day at the market close, on a day when the S&P 500 index dropped nearly 6%.
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Visitors to L.A. – or locals looking for a fun reason to leave their apartments – can scroll the interactive map on a browser or download the app.
Image courtesy of the L.A. Tourism Dept.
The “Discover Los Angeles” map can be broken down by neighborhood or by a series of “guides,” which all feature as part of the larger promotional campaign roll-out known as the Explorer’s Guide to L.A
Atlas Obscura and the Tourism Department also published a hardcover edition of the Explorer’s Guide, along with several other speciality breakout guides, including the Meeting Planners Guide, artistic Visitor’s Map and, for those with more expensive tastes, the L.A. Luxury Guide to the city’s pricier pursuits. The paper versions of the guides have QR codes for travelers to scan and take information with them on the go.
This year’s collaboration with Atlas Obscura gives the Tourism Department’s previous guide a much-needed update – it was previously a whopping 136-page PDF document created in 2020.
The Explorer’s Guide includes a mix of places you’d expect to see on the map, like Griffith Park and the museum at the La Brea Tar Pits. It also has some unlikely spots sourced from Atlas Obscura’s network of local explorers who recommended their favorite places to visit: the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Venice Canals or the Watts Towers, a stunning, monumental public art exhibit of mosaic steel towers that was built by one Italian immigrant over a 34-year period.
30 neighborhoods are discussed in the guide, from classic tourist destinations like Hollywood and beach cities like Santa Monica and Venice to lesser-known but still exciting enclaves like Leimert Park, Frogtown and Little Ethiopia. There’s also several maps for specific interests – taqueria lovers will find new spots to nosh with the taco map, and there’s also a map of the Downtown Arts District, spots to stargaze and sports venues.
“For myself and the writers and editors on this project, many of them L.A. natives, getting to write and curate the official visitors guide to the city of L.A. was an absolute dream,” Atlas Obscura co-founder Dylan Thuras said in a statement. “We hope that these guides will inspire all the curious travelers arriving in L.A., to try new things, as well as providing new adventures for longtime L.A. residents. There is really no limit to what L.A. has to offer.”
