Here today, gone tomorrow–that’s the idea behind Snapchat’s Discover service. The blink-or-you’ll-miss-it messaging app that allows users to post anything they wish with no threats of having a salacious chat or image come back to haunt them is now making deals to have news and entertainment offerings. However, these news stories will have a longer shelf life than the messages—24 full hours, and in any case, after a day, news gets old anyway.
The hugely successful Snapchat, which resisted a $3 billion bid from Facebook, is making deals with CNN, Comedy Central, Cosmopolitan, the Daily Mail, ESPN, Food Network, National Geographic, People, VICE, Yahoo! News and Warner Music Group, according to the New York Observer. That list is basically a Who’s Who of the most important media names today.
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Snapchat is “one of the most engaging platforms out there, ” says Andrew Morse, SVP and GM of CNN Digital, “and we’re excited to be able to program content specifically for that audience.”
It isn’t a “dumbing down” of the news for kids who like to trade disappearing images of their rear ends, but it does involve giving a snapshot of the story, a quick idea or summary, rather than an in-depth news report. An apparent liability, the fact the story will disappear in 24 hours, is actually an advantage; a user, knowing the story won’t be there tomorrow, will look at it right away.
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel succeeded in raising $486 million so far in 2015. Spiegel announced that he is committed to a privacy policy and has promised not to bombard people with ads.
