“You’ll notice today that there’s a new ‘Live’ section beneath your Recent Updates,” says the official blog post announcement. “That’s where you’ll be able to experience Stories contributed by the Snapchat community at all sorts of events. It’s a great way to check out what’s happening around the world.”
“We’re so grateful for your awesome (and hilarious!) contributions to Our Story. The world has never experienced this before — it’s truly a product of the Snapchat community.”
Related: Snapchat looking to monetize, reportedly in talks with advertisers and news sites
The feeds that appear in Our Story are specifically curated by Snapchat staff — only the best photos and videos are chosen and they must be uploaded from within a specific area (such as a festival) to be included. Snapchatters can then tune in to the Story get a flavor of what it’s like to be there.
With the big app makers bringing out Snapchat clones of their own, the platform needs to keep evolving to stay relevant and justify its recent $10 billion valuation. Reports suggest representatives from Snapchat are now meeting with advertisers and media firms to explore ways to monetize the more than one billion Stories that are viewed every day in the app. Snapchat has yet to reveal how many active users it has.
Our Stories could be a significant part of that monetization drive. Imagine a soccer tournament or music festival stream interspersed with promotional Snaps from major brands, for example. Snapchat will be hoping it proves just as popular as the My Story feature, which now accounts for more traffic than the one-to-one Snaps that first made the app take off.
