Snap announces tools, monetization opportunities for creators
Snap Inc. announced new tools, workflows, and monetization opportunities to support creators’ growth on Snapchat. Story Studio is Snap’s new standalone app offering editing tools to make professional content for mobile, on mobile for Snapchat and other platforms, the company said. Story Studio for iOS will launch later this year with these features:
- Insights into trending #Topics, Sounds, and Lenses across Snapchat
- Access to Snap’s catalog of licensed music and audio clips for use in video projects
- Frame-precise trimming, slicing, and cutting, as well as frame-precise placement of creative elements like captions, stickers, Sounds and other media layers
- Visual effects using Snap’s augmented reality technology via Lenses and cross-clip transitions
- The ability to save and edit projects until you’re ready to share
- Direct posting of the finished video to Spotlight or Stories (via Creative Kit), download to the camera roll or open it in other installed apps
- Easy login with Snapchat (via Login Kit)
Spotlight is rolling out globally and reaches 125 million monthly active users. The number of viewers watching Spotlight for at least 10 minutes per day grew by over 70% from January to March. Snap continues to offer millions per month to reward Snapchatters for their creativity. Since launching in November, over 5,400 Creators have earned more than $130 million dollars.
Snap also launched a new destination to watch Spotlight content on the web, even without a Snapchat account. There, creators and brands who lean on desktop tools like Final Cut Pro can easily upload content into Spotlight directly from Chrome or Safari, even in 4k.
New Spectacles
Snap also previewed its new not-for-sale Spectacles, this time reconfigured for AR applications. The new specs feature:
- Dual 3D waveguide displays and a 26.3-degree diagonal field of view overlay immersive AR Lenses on the world
- The new Snap Spatial Engine leverages six degrees of freedom and hand, marker, and surface tracking
- 15 millisecond motion to photon latency allows Lenses to react quickly and appear accurately within the field of view
- A dynamically-adjusting display shines up to 2000 Nits of brightness for full image quality, even outside
- Two RGB cameras, four built-in microphones, two stereo speakers, and built-in touchpad controls
- At 134 grams, Spectacles let creators bring Snap’s world of AR anywhere for approximately 30 minutes per charge
Spectacles are fully integrated with Lens Studio, Snap’s desktop application designed for augmented reality creators and developers to build and distribute Lenses across Snap’s AR platform. Through Lens Studio, creators can wirelessly push their Lenses to Spectacles directly for rapid testing and iteration, allowing creators to build and interact with their Lenses in real-time.
Perfect Corp. teams with Snap
In other Snap partnerships, Perfect Corp., the AI and AR beauty tech solutions company announced the launch of shoppable Lens experience with first brand partner, The Estée Lauder Companies. The Estée Lauder Companies will become the first beauty company to leverage Snapchat’s newest Dynamic Shopping Lenses, allowing consumers to browse up-to-date product inventory, virtually try-on, and make product purchases. M·A·C Cosmetics will be among the first brands in The Estée Lauder Companies’ portfolio to launch the Dynamic Shopping Lenses on their Snapchat profile, utilizing their existing try-on experiences created with Perfect Corp.
“We are excited to work with Snap Inc. to combine e-commerce and AR virtual try-on for a unique solution that delivers a more impactful social media shopping experience for Snapchatters,” shares Perfect Corp. founder and CEO, Alice Chang. “This unique partnership enables beauty brands to harness the power of AR and AI to engage their customers and deliver impactful digital-first experiences that convert.”