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Snapchat now lets advertisers sell products directly through Lenses

Published April 18, 2018

This week Snapchat is rolling out Shoppable AR, a new feature that makes it even easier for advertisers to sell goods through sponsored lenses. The new offering builds on top of the Sponsored Lenses the service rolled out in late-2015, which let advertisers create branded filters, bringing product placements to selfies.

Now companies can essentially close that shopping loop, while keeping users inside the Snapchat experience. Shoppable AR makes it possible to add a button directly to a Lens, which users can tap on to visit a website where they can learn more about or — more to the point — just buy the product. Other options include a link to install an app or a “long form” video like a trailer. All of that happens directly inside the app.

The feature is rolling out with a quartet of media partners to start. Clairol is selling an AR “beauty product trial,” Adidas is moving its Deerupt running shoes, King has an AR Candy Crush game and STX will try to get you to watch Amy Schumer’s new comedy, I Feel Pretty.

There’s no price increase here for advertisers. The additional features will no doubt be an easy sell for those companies that have already been using Snapchat to advertise. Keeping users inside the app reduces friction of sales quite a bit, offering up ads and product sales as a more organic feature — one that doesn’t necessarily feel like advertising. For Snap, of course, the more time users spend engaged directly inside the app, the better.

According to Snap, 70 million users engage with Lenses each day. Earlier this week, the company also rolled out updates to Lens studio, which lets users create their own AR Lenses for the platform.

Snap launches new features for Lens Studio

Published April 17, 2018

At the end of last year, Snap introduced Lens Studio, a platform that allows developers to create AR lenses for Snapchat. Today, the company is announcing new features for Lens Studio, including seven brand new templates for the creation of face lenses.

Before now, only World Lens creation was available to everyone within Lens Studio, meaning developers could create 3D AR objects but not overlay AR experiences over faces. Now, developers can create Face Lenses, with seven different templates from which to choose.

Here are the new templates for Face Lenses:

Face Paint: focuses on face substitution, mapping the face to let developers create art tied to facial features like the lips or nose (great for makeup or accessories)
Photo: much like Face Paint, Photo lets creators overlay lenses onto a single static (head-on) photo
Distort: lets developers stretch or shrink facial features
Trigger: with Trigger, developers can create a trigger (blinking, raising eyebrows, open/close mouth) to execute a lens
2D Objects: this template works the same way as Snap’s famous dog ears filter, letting developers create 2D objects that can be overlaid on a picture of video
3D Objects: same as 2D Objects, but with 3D objects; this template also includes a helper script to play looping animation on the 3D objects
Baseball Cap: revamp a 3D baseball cap to change color, brim style and add an image

Alongside the new templates, Snap is also integrating with Giphy to give Lens Studio developers access to Giphy’s massive library of animated GIF stickers.

With the introduction of these new features, Snap is opening up these third-party lenses to the public with the launch of Community Lens Stories. Each story will include public Snaps submitted on Our Story that highlight a community lens. Folks can swipe up on one of these Snaps to unlock the lens, or browse other Lenses by tapping the ‘i’ button above a Community Lens in the carousel.

This is all in an effort to open up Snap to third-party developers and creators, which is why the company is launching the Official Creator Program. This will allow the Snap team to partner with select creators to offer support, including visibility on the Lens Studio website as well as direct support from the Lens Studio team. Official Creators will also get early access to features and templates.

Snapchat brings back GIPHY after removal due to racist GIF

Published April 3, 2018

After a racial slur GIF caused Snapchat to remove its GIPHY sticker feature, Snapchat confirms to TechCrunch it’s reinstated its integration. GIPHY has apologized, fixed the bug that let the objectionable GIF slip through, and reviewed its GIF sticker library four times in an effort to guarantee that offensive content won’t end up in apps that embed it. Instagram had also removed GIPHY, but reinstated it last week with Snapchat saying it had nothing to share yet.

A Snap spokesperson told TechCrunch that over the past several weeks, the Snap team worked with GIPHY to revamp its moderation systems. Now Snap is confident that the fresh approach will protect users, so its brought the GIF stickers back. They let people embellish their photos and videos with overlaid animated illustrations and video clips.

So ends a month-long ordeal that started when a U.K. user spotted a GIF containing a racial slur for people of color. Snapchat removed the GIPHY feature as press backlash in the U.K. mounted. Instagram wasn’t aware of the issue until informed by TechCrunch, leading it to remove the GIPHY feature within an hour.

Warning: We’ve shared a censored version of the GIF below, but it still includes graphic content that may be offensive to some users.

The situation highlights the risks of working with outside developers that aren’t entirely under a platform’s control. Piping in external utilities lets apps quickly expand their offering to users. But if developers misuse people’s data, deliver broken functionality, or let objectionable content through, it can reflect poorly on the app hosting them. Facebook is currently dealing with this backlash surrounding Cambridge Analytica. Meanwhile, Instagram just severely restricted its APIs without warning, breaking many developers’ apps in what’s believed to be part of Facebook’s push to shore up data privacy.

Favoring news publishers, Snapchat historically never actively embraced developers, banning use of outside apps that require your Snapchat credentials. It’s more recently started letting devs build and promote their own augmented reality lenses. But after this set-back, we’ll have to see if Snapchat becomes any more reluctant to work with partners.

Instagram reenables GIF sharing after GIPHY promises no more racism

Published March 29, 2018

A racial slur GIF slipped into GIPHY’s sticker library earlier this month, prompting Instagram and Snapchat to drop their GIPHY integrations. Now Instagram is reactivating after GIPHY confirmed its reviewed its GIF library four times and will preemptively review any new GIFs it adds. Snapchat said it had nothing to share right now about whether it’s going to reactivate GIPHY.

“We’ve been in close contact with GIPHY throughout this process and we’re confident that they have put measures in place to ensure that Instagram users have a good experience” an Instagram spokesperson told TechCrunch. GIPHY told TechCrunch in a statement that “To anyone who was affected: we’re sorry. We take full responsibility for this recent event and under no circumstances does
GIPHY condone or support this kind of content . . . We have also finished a full investigation into our content moderations systems and processes and have made specific changes to our process to ensure soemthing like this does not happen again.”

Snapchat and Instagram remove Giphy feature due to racial slur GIF

We first reported Instagram was building a GIPHY integration back in January before it launched a week later, with Snapchat adding a similar feature in February. But it wasn’t long before things went wrong. First spotted by a user in the U.K. around March 8th, the GIF included a racial slur. We’ve shared a censored version of the image below, but warning, it still includes graphic content that may be offensive to some users.

When asked, Snapchat told TechCrunch ““We have removed GIPHY from our application until we can be assured that this will never happen again.” Instagram wasn’t aware that the racist GIF was available in its GIPHY integration until informed by TechCrunch, leading to a shut down of the feature within an hour. An Instagram spokesperson told TechCrunch “This type of content has no place on Instagram.” After 12 hours of silence, GIPHY responded the next morning, telling us “After investigation of the incident, this sticker was available due to a bug in our content moderation filters specifically affecting GIF stickers.”

The fiasco highlights the risks of major platforms working with third-party developers to brings outside and crowdsourced content into their apps. Snapchat historically resisted working with established developers, but recently has struck more partnerships particularly around augmented reality lenses and marketing service providers. While it’s an easy way to provide more entertainment and creative expression tools, developer integrations also force companies to rely on the quality and safety of things they don’t fully control. As Instagram and Snapchat race for users around the world, they’ll have to weigh the risks and rewards of letting developers into their gardens.

GIPHY’s full statement is below.

CHANGES TO GIPHY’S STICKER MODERATION
Before we get into the details, we wanted to take a moment and sincerely apologize for the
deeply offensive sticker discovered by a user on March 8, 2018. To anyone who was affected:
we’re sorry. We take full responsibility for this recent event and under no circumstances does
GIPHY condone or support this kind of content.
The content was immediately removed and after investigation a bug was found in our content
moderation filters affecting stickers. This bug was immediately fixed and all stickers were re-
moderated.
We have also finished a full investigation into our content moderation systems and processes
and have made specific changes to our process to ensure something like this does not happen
again.

THE CHANGES
After fixing the bug in our content moderation filters and confirming that the sticker was
successfully detected, we re-moderated our entire sticker library 4x.
We have also added another level of GIPHY moderation before each sticker is approved into
the library. This is now a permanent addition to our moderation process.
We hope this will ensure that GIPHY stickers will always be fun and safe no matter where you
see them.

THE FUTURE AND BEYOND
GIFs and Stickers are supposed to make the Internet a better, more entertaining place.
GIPHY is committed to making sure that’s always the case. As GIPHY continues to grow, we’re
going to continue looking for ways to improve our user experience. Please let us know how we
can help at: support@giphy.com.
Team Giphy.

Instagram Stories gets ‘quote tweet’-style feed post resharing

Published March 19, 2018

Instagram’s next big Stories feature could let you compliment or trash talk other people’s feed posts, or embed a “see post” button to promote your own. A TechCrunch reader sent us these screenshots of the new feature, which Instagram confirmed to us is appearing to a small subset of users. “We’re always testing ways to make it easier to share any moment with friends on Instagram” a spokesperson wrote. Now those moments can include dunking on people.

Instagram has never had a true “regram” feature with the feed, just slews of unofficial and sometimes scammy apps, but this is perhaps the closest thing. Users often screenshot feed posts and share them in Stories with overlaid commentary, but this limited the cropping and commentary options. Making an official “reshare could unlock all sorts of new user behaviors, from meme curation to burn book shade throwing to social stars teasing their feed posts in their Stories. Brands might love it for using their Stories to cross-promote a big ad campaign. Employing Stories to drive extra Likes and comments to permanent posts could help them gain more visibility in Instagram’s feed ranking algorithm.

Here’s how the feed post to Instagram Stories sharing feature works. You pick any public, permanent Instagram post and tap a button to embed it in your Story. You can tap to change the design to highlight or downplay the post’s author, move and resize it within your Story post, and add commentary or imagery using Instagram’s creative tools. When people view the story, they can tap on the post embed to bring up a “see post” button which opens the permanent feed post.

Users who don’t want their posts to be “quote-Storied” can turn off the option in their settings, and only public posts can be reshared. Facebook says it doesn’t have details about a wider potential rollout beyond the small percentage of users currently with access. But given the popularity of apps like Repost For Instagram, I expect the feature to be popular and eventually open to everyone.

Quote-Storying could help keep the feed relevant as more users spend their time sharing to the little bubbles that sit above it. And it offers a powerful viral discover mechanism for creators who can now ask fans to quickly reshare their post rather than having to awkwardly screenshot and upload them.

While both Instagram and Snapchat have let people privately send other people’s posts to friends as private messages, Snapchat lacks a way to embed other Stories or Discover content in your Story. Snapchat may have pioneered the Stories format, but Instagram has been rapidly iterating with features like Super Zoom and Highlights to extend its user count lead over the app it cloned.

The move by Instagram further ties together the three parts of its app: the permanent feed, ephemeral Stories, and private Direct messaging. You can imagine someone finding a post in the feed, resharing it their story, then joking about it with friends over Direct. It’s this multi-modal social media usage that turns casual users into loyal, ad revenue-generating ‘Grammers.

Snapchat removes Giphy feature due to racial slur GIF

Published March 9, 2018

Snapchat has temporarily removed its Giphy GIF sticker feature after a user saw an extremely racist GIF as an option. Snapchat confirms to TechCrunch “As soon as we were made aware, we removed the GIF and have disabled Giphy until we can be sure that this won’t happen again. Read More

Snapchat finally adds @ mention tagging

Published March 8, 2018

Snapchat now lets you @-tag someone in your Story, creating a swipe up “more” option that shows the tagged person’s name, handle, Bitmoji, and an Add button so you can follow them too. The feature could let friends call each other out in Stories, or promote their favorite influencers by making it easy for people to follow them.
Snapchat now confirms to TechCrunch that… Read More

Snapchat is stuck in the uncanny valley of AR glasses

Published March 4, 2018

“Timing”, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said cryptically when asked what the greatest threat was for Snap Inc. “I think the big risks are always the really big product ideas that we’re investing in that are just hard to get right” he told the Goldman Sachs conference two weeks ago. The statements got lost amongst flashier quotes. He defended the Snapchat redesign… Read More

Instagram code reveals unreleased voice and video calling

Published March 2, 2018

Instagram wants to be your phone, not just your camera. And it wants to be better at it than Snapchat. Files buried in Instagram and the Instagram Direct standalone app’s Android Application Packages (APKs) are files and icons for “Call” and “Video Call”. APKs often show files for unreleased features that are lying dormant in an app waiting to be surfaced when… Read More

Despite backlash to the redesign, Snapchat downloads are up

Published February 27, 2018

“What’s all the fuss about?” Curiosity over why people are protesting the Snapchat redesign seems to have inspired a new wave of users to try the app. Snapchat downloads in the U.S. went up 41 percent to 76 percent in the week following the redesign’s February 6th rollout compared to the week before. Read More