Ephemeral messaging application Snapchat has seen a meteoric rise in the not so distant past. The company itself is believed to be at a $10 billion valuation with over 500 million snaps being sent by users every day and an average user checking his or her account at least 14 times every single day. There has been a lot of speculation about how Snapchat will lean on its massive user base to open up revenue streams and grow as a company, a new report published by the Wall Street Journal today hints that perhaps Snapchat might be working on a news service of sorts.
Now at first this might not make sense. How would an app that lets users send disappearing photo and video messages be transformed into a news service? Snapchat has reportedly held talks with major media organizations which includes TV networks, magazines and newspapers, for a service called Snapchat Discovery. The service allow users to “read daily editions of publications as well as watch video clips of TV shows or movies.” Another interesting thing mentioned in the report is that Snapchat Discovery will feature advertisements.
Presumably each content source would have its own account on which a user can hold down a finger to view the latest. In true Snapchat spirit its possible that the news or entertainment item may disappear after it has been viewed by the user. This is pure speculation at this point, the report doesn’t reveal how the service would actually work.
Snapchat has already partnered with many organizations and even TV networks for various campaigns but Discovery might serve as a concrete revenue stream for the company. Snapchat Discovery will reportedly be launched this November.