Snapchat Launches Birthday Party Update
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| Tech Crunch |
It seems like its big news for birthday celebrations on social media from here onwards. This week we reported on how Facebook are now encouraging mobile users to send birthday videos to their friends. Now Snapchat have gotten in on the action with their new Birthday Party lenses.
The two new lenses can either be used on your birthday or can be sent to friends on their birthdays. To be able to access them then you need to reveal your age to the app so they know exactly how old you are and when the app should make these lenses available for you. Once you've enabled the Birthday Party option, your friends will see a little birthday cake emoji next your name on the day and they'll be able to send you a special snap with a birthday lens. If you want to test this out and it's not your birthday for a while then just be warned that you can only change your birth date a limited number of times. It doesn't say how many times on their support site so it's best to try and only change it once - or twice at the most.
I'm sure a few of you are thinking what's the point in this? Well, for one thing, Snapchat is mostly used by teenagers and this is the sort of thing they might enjoy having the option to do. What's cuter then sending your friends a happy birthday snap rather than just saying it in real life or on Facebook? Well, plenty of things but I'm sure but you get the point. Snapchat need to cater to their teenage user base and this does that.
The other reason they might have included a birth date function is for information. Snapchat can get statistics on their user base in other ways but the people changing their birth dates will likely be people who use it regularly and keep an eye on updates for the app. If they can work out how old these regular users are then they can tailor updates and ads to these people even if they hadn't shared their information before. It's no surprise considering Snapchat said only last month that they'd be focusing more on ad revenue and their sponsored lenses. Some of the information on users will probably go towards making deals with companies for more appropriate lenses, for instance the Peanuts film ones may have been a little too childish or the Grimsby one that's around now might be a little too mature. It's about finding the right balance and to do that, Snapchat clearly need more information.
You're not getting much by putting in your birth date but it doesn't look as if you'd be putting your information at risk either. So if you want some lens additions for your birthday then you can change your birth date in the Snapchat settings menu.
Rosina is a Songbird rookie with a degree in Creative Writing. She's trying to focus on her novel on the side but is hoping that Content Writing will turn out to be a good career choice in the mean time! Follow her @RosinaAtSMF
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Snapchat Launches Birthday Party Update
Reviewed by Unknown
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Thursday, February 25, 2016
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Reviewed by Unknown
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Thursday, February 25, 2016
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Unknown
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