Snapchat Teams with Major Media Companies on New Feature

Snapchat is in talks with Buzzfeed, ESPN, CNN, Vevo and others to help launch a new feature for its popular app that offers a much wider variety of content than friends’ selfies. These media companies will produce articles, music and video for the upcoming “Discover” section of the Snapchat app, making it more of an all-inclusive media consumption app. No date has been announced regarding when the “Discover” section will make its debut on the popular photo- and video-messaging app.

SnapchatSnapchat is talking to several big media companies, from traditional publishing houses to newer digital-media based companies. Comedy Central and National Geographic, two of the companies in negotiations with Snapchat, are known for creating the type of image-based media that already exists on Snapchat.

Hearst and Time Inc., however, are more well known for their text-based content, while Vevo and Spotify focus on their music content. Other companies talking to Snapchat include Vice, CNN, the Daily Mail, and ESPN.

These companies would be responsible for creating their own content for the app, and they would get a cut of the mobile ad revenue in return. Facebook is offering a similar deal to content creators that host their stories on Facebook.

“Snapchat is also urging these media companies to seek brands that want to advertise against the media they will distribute on Discover, with Snapchat retaining a portion of the revenue,” reported Digiday.

In true Snapchat fashion, the content, whether it is audio or a still image, will only be available for a limited amount of time. The stories will not necessarily be short though. Pew Research has found that longer stories are actually quite popular on mobile, and Snapchat plans to feature stories of all lengths in addition to a variety of media.

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