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Snapchat and Instagram remove Giphy feature due to racial slur GIF
Snapchat and Instagram have temporarily removed their Giphy GIF sticker features after users saw an extremely racist GIF as an option to add to their images. 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…
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Despite backlash to the redesign, Snapchat downloads are up
“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, according to…
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Snapchat responds to the Change.org petition complaining about the app’s redesign
Snapchat has posted an official response to users who signed a petition on Change.org asking the company to reverse its controversial update, which people say makes the app more difficult to use. In the response, Snapchat promises to make a few more changes to the Friends and Discover section in order to address user complaints.…
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Instagram Direct one-ups Snapchat with replay privacy controls
Messaging is the heart of Snapchat, so after cloning and augmenting Stories, Instagram is hoping to boost intimate usage of Direct with privacy controls not found elsewhere. Now when you send an ephemeral photo or video from the Instagram Direct camera, you can decide whether recipients can only view it once, replay it temporarily or…
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Snapchat adds GIF stickers via Giphy, plus new Friends and Discover screen tabs
Snapchat is bringing one of the best recent features of Instagram Stories to its own app, with the ability to add GIF stickers from Giphy to your posts. This is a notable reversal of the typical pattern we’ve seen of Instagram cloning Snapchat features, but it’s a good one for users since GIF stickers for…
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Snap CEO Evan Spiegel basically says the Snapchat redesign is here to stay
Despite a lot of backlash over a big redesign for the Snapchat app — which to be sure is a very big deal for a product-centric company like Snap — Snap CEO Evan Spiegel vigorously defended the redesign and basically said people need to get used to it. Spiegel said at the Goldman Sachs Internet…
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Snapchat finally gives creators analytics
Snapchat has always been terrible at analytics, only showing daily Story view counts that content creators had to screenshot just before they disappeared every 24 hours in order to prove their worth to sponsors. But starting today, tens of thousands creators who make official Stories or have large followings will start seeing a slew of…
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Why Google Stories will save, not screw, Snapchat Discover
Snapchat has a new ally or enemy depending on how you look at Google’s new mobile magazine format, but the social app is welcoming the search giant. Google’s clone of Snapchat Discover, called AMP Stories, officially launched today, allowing news outlets to create photo/video slideshows that appear in mobile search results and on their site. …
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How Reggie Brown invented Snapchat
Billy Gallagher Contributor More posts by this contributor Zero To One: How Blake Masters Went From Being Peter Thiel’s Student To Co-Author Mashr Resurrects A Tinder Experiment To Make You A Matchmaker Reggie Brown carefully ran his fingers over the blunt, admiring its tightly rolled perfection. It was almost a shame to smoke such a…
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Snapchat almost acqui-hired anonymous app Secret
Evan Spiegel secretly tried to hire away the team at Secret, but the price was too high. That’s according to three sources familiar with the deal who spoke to TechCrunch. The information expands and clarifies a report from the new book about Snapchat’s origin story coming out next week called “How to Turn Down a…