Friday night at the bar with some friends “Hey I couldn’t find you on Snapchat, let me just scan your code real quick!” What code and which chat? I had no clue what my friend was talking about. My phone in her hands, the next morning I look at a funny white looking character with a yellow background on my phone.
Now either you are person 1: my friend, the trend setter and pioneer when it comes to new Apps laughing about person 2: that’s me: always trapped when these people ask about new things but getting into it right on time OR you are person 3 (and therefore very sympathetic to my mind): still asking yourself what code I was talking about in the beginning.
Person 2 and 3 you go ahead and read my blog. Number 1? Go check out latest trends you will be shocked noticing I don’t know about in 3 month.
First things first – for the sympathetic latecomer I have done my research. Snapchat is a fun messaging application gaining its prominence fast during the last couple of years (released only September 2011). The App is available in the Apple Store as well as in Google Play. After downloading the App you can take photos, videos, add captions, drawings or features and send these to whomever you chose to be friends with on Snapchat. You can set a time for how long your recipient/s can see your photo (1 to 10 seconds). Yes, you can send one picture to either one or more people. Snapchat claims to delete your “Snaps” (photos or videos you have sent) after, but you will find lots of debates online whether that is the truth.
Now you might think ‘what’s the matter with taking pictures and them disappearing after a few seconds?’ Don’t worry, you can save the picture before sending them off to your friends. You can also take a screenshot of pictures you receive, but that’s tricky since your friend gets a notification that you took a screenshot of their Snap. So if you want to stay friends, don’t screenshot the party picture your friend sent you at 3 am.
You also have the option to share the picture or video taken to your “Snapchat story”which means that it is visible to your friends and followers for 24 hours. If you want to have a visual explanation of how Snapchat works just have Snapchat-star Sunny Lenarduzzi explain it to you in her YouTube tutorial.
To find friends on Snapchat you have four options. When you are on your startscreen just swipe down the ghost mascot and you will see somewhat the same as the picture on the left. When you click on “Added me” you will find friends who have added you and by clicking the “+” you will add them too. On “Add Friends” you can just type in the Snapchatname of your friend and again with the plus sign you can add him/her. The “My Friends” list shows you who of your friends in your contact list is a Snapchat user, so you can add more people there. The fourth option to add a friend clarifies the code situation in the bar with my friend. Each Snapchat user has his/her very own Snapchatcode. Mine for example is the one on the left picture. Your friend just has to scan your Snapchatcode with his Snapchatcamera and you then automatically follow that person.
I can just speak for myself, but after that night and my friend downloading the App on my phone, my fingers have touched that funny white ghost mascot named “Ghostface Chillah” way too many times making me one of 100 million daily users who together share 9000 photos every second. These people, including me, need to be entertained and some creative heads working at Snapchat in Venice always find ways of doing exactly that with new features or settings.
Read my next blogpost for more explanation when it comes to the Snapchat language, features, symbols and the new Snapchat Update!
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