INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Leak says Snap will finally embrace developersSnapchat is secretly planning the launch of its first full-fledged developer platform,
is currently in talks with several app developers to integrate Snapkit.The platform could breathe new life into plateauing Snapchat by
colonizing the mobile app ecosystem with its login buttons and content
But teens, long skeptical of Facebook and unsettled by the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, could look to Snapchat for a privacy-safe way
to log in to other apps without creating a new username and password.Snap Inc
declined to comment on this story.Years of developer neglectSnapchat is making a big course correction in its strategy here after years of
rejecting outside developers
In 2014, unofficial apps that let you surreptitiously save Snaps but required your Snapchat credentials caused data breaches, leading the
company to reiterate its ban on using them
It also shut off sharing from a popular third-party music video sharing app called Mindie
By December, Snapchat had launched Lens Studio, which lets brands and developers build limited AR content for the app
functionality that developers could use in their own apps
But with Snapchat slipping to its lowest user growth rate ever after being pummeled by competition from Facebook and Instagram, the company
developers or them misusing
app knowing who you are on Snapchat, which the company plans to provide with Snapkit, is the ability to bring your Bitmoji avatar with you
staple of the top 10 chart since
Avatars.While Bitmoji has offered a keyboard full of your avatar in different scenes, Snapkit could make it easy to add yours as stickers on
photos or in other ways in third-party apps
Seeing them across the mobile universe could inspire more users to create their own Bitmoji lookalike.Snapchat is also working on a way for
developers to integrate its editing tool-laden and AR-equipped camera into their own apps
Instead of having to reinvent the wheel if they want to permit visual sharing and inevitably building a poor knockoff, apps could just add
The idea is the photos and videos shot with the camera could then be used in that app as well as shared back to Snapchat
Similar to Facebook and Instagram Stories opening up to posts from third-parties, this could inject fresh forms of content into Snapchat at
a time when usage is slipping.Launching a platform also means Snapchat will take on new risks, as third-parties with access to user data
Snap also will have to convince developers that making it easier for its 191 million daily users to join their apps is worth the engineering
resources, given how that community is dwarfed by the multi-billion user Google and Facebook login systems
privacy and custom avatars
Through an army of developers, Snapchat might find the firepower to challenge the blue empire.For more on Snapchat and its competitors,
check out our other coverage:
