From DigitalRhetoricCollaborative

Snapchat is a real-time social media application created by Stanford Univeristy students, Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown. The photo-based application creates a platform for images and videos to be created and then altered by the addition of filters, text and drawings. These images, which are referred to as “Snaps” can then be distributed to a network of friends for a selected duration of time between 1 and 10 seconds. Recent updates to the application allow for the images to be saved to a timeline called My Story and remain visible to friends for up to 24 hours. Over 400 million “Snaps” are sent and received every day ^[1] and the application's growing user interface is maintaining SnapChat’s personal motto for “building a photo app that doesn’t conform to unrealistic notions of beauty or perfection but rather creates a space to be funny, honest or whatever else you might feel like at the moment you take and share a Snap.”^[2]

History

Snapchat was first launched in July 2011 as Picaboo, the name was shortly rebranded as Snapchat during the same year. In 2012 the application was released on Android devices shortly followed by an Apple ISO release.^[3] The application quickly grew in popularity and by late 2013 the first major update to the application was launched. The update enhanced the speed and design of the application allowing for swipe navigation, double-tap reply option for users and an improved friend finder - creating a more fluid interface. ^[4] In early 2013 the application launched another update that enabled users to send and alter video snaps and added a text message feature which allowed users to correspond both privately and publicly. The next update introduced the My Story feature of the application which allowed users to post snaps that could be viewed by their whole network instead of single selected friends. Today the application includes features such as customizable text, geo flitters and photo filters multi-color drawing modes that allow the user to interact with their environment and then disseminate the information to a mass of people or a selected individual.

Features

The features of Snapchat allow users to enhance, diminish or recontextualize their environments and produce, for a second party, a hyperfocused and mediated glimpse into their day-to-day life. All photo manipulating features are added to the image after the picture is taken, but before the snap is sent. These features include Text, Image Filters, Geo Filters and Color Drawing.

Text

In the application, users can add text by tapping on the image and then using the built-in keyboard to add a preselected amount of characters. The application links with the keyboards installed on the users phone which allows for multiple language capabilities, including Emojis. The default text is displayed on top on the image set within a semi-transparent grey box.