Alexander Dao

Snap Inc. is a camera company. They believe that reinventing the camera represents their greatest opportunity to improve the way that people live and communicate. They contribute to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. Their flagship product, Snapchat, is a camera application that helps people communicate visually with friends and family through short videos and images called Snaps. By opening directly to the camera, they empower users to express themselves instantly. Snaps are deleted by default, so there is less pressure to look pretty or perfect when creating and sending images on Snapchat. By reducing the friction typically associated with creating and sharing content, Snapchat has become one of the most used cameras in the world. In the way that the flashing cursor became the starting point for most products on desktop computers, they believe the camera screen will be the starting point for most products on smartphones. This is because images created by smartphone cameras contain more context and richer information than other forms of input like text entered on a keyboard. Given the magnitude of this opportunity, they invest heavily and take big risks in an attempt to create innovative and differentiated camera products that are better able to reflect and improve our life experiences. Snapchat is Snap Inc’s core mobile device application and contains five distinct tabs, complemented by additional tools that function outside of the application. With a breadth of visual communication and content experiences available within the application, Snapchatters can interact with all five, or a subset of those five tabs. The five tabs are: Camera, Communication, Snap Map, Stories, and Spotlight. The Camera is the starting point for creation in Snapchat. Snapchat opens directly to the Camera, making it easy to create a Snap and send it to friends. Snap’s augmented reality, or AR, capabilities within the Camera allow for creativity and self-expression. They offer millions of Lenses, created by both Snap and the community, along with creative tools and licensed music and audio clips, which make it easy for people to personalize and contextualize their Snaps. Communication allows users to send Snaps to friends collectively or individually, through their ephemeral, efficient messaging architecture. Snap Map is a live and highly personalized map that allows Snapchatters to connect with friends and explore what is going on in their local area. Snap Map makes it easy to locate nearby friends who choose to share their location, view a heatmap of recent Snaps posted to Our Story by location, and locate local businesses. Stories feature content from a Snapchatter’s friends, our community, and content partners. Friends Stories allow community members to express themselves in narrative form through photos and videos, shown in chronological order, to their friends. Spotlight is a way to broadly share user-generated content with the entire Snapchat community. Snapchat surfaces the most entertaining Snaps from the community all in one place, which becomes tailored to each Snapchatter overtime based on their preferences and favorites. The Trending page allows Snapchatters to discover and engage with popular topics and genres.