Snapchat is a very popular messenger abroad, and especially in the USA. In Russia and the CIS countries, he did not receive such a distribution. How are other similar programs different from Snapchat? What it is? The following is a detailed description of the messenger functionality.
Briefly about the history of creation
The messenger was created by the joint work of three students of Stanford University - Reginald Brown, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. The main “feature” of the application was the short duration of messages (up to 10 seconds after viewing) in Snapchat. What is it and why was it needed? According to the developers, this feature makes communication between users more lively and relaxed. Given the fragility of the message, a member of the social network is not afraid to send an intimate or “crazy” photo to Snapchat, because it will automatically be deleted a few seconds after delivery to the final recipient.
The first version of the messenger was introduced in 2011 for the iOS system and was called Picaboo. The application could not boast of particular popularity. After the first failure, one of the creators of the program, Reginald Brown, left the team. And, as time has shown, in vain. Thanks to a cousin of one of the developers who distributed the messenger among his peers, Snapchat quickly became popular among young people.
A qualitative impetus to the promotion of the application was given by the partner of the Lightspeed Venture Partners fund, Jeremy Lew, who provided significant financial support to a fresh and interesting startup.
It is known for certain that in 2013, the founder of the social network Facebook Mark Zuckerberg became seriously interested in the service. He even received an offer to buy a company for $ 3 billion, which ended in failure.
The ultimate success is evidenced by the fact that at the moment Evan Spiegel, one of the founders of Snap Inc., is the youngest billionaire according to Forbes magazine.
Description of the features of the messenger
Many people have a question: "Snapchat - what is it?" Although it is similar, in its general essence, to the same Viber or WhatsApp, it is fundamentally different from them. The following are the features of the messenger functionality:
- Brief message life. When sending a message, the user independently selects the time during which viewing will be available (no more than 10 seconds). After the specified period, the message is automatically deleted.
- The ability to create your own "stories" from your photos, with a longer duration of existence, access to selected friends.
- A simple, no-brainer system for creating an account and registering a new Snapchat user.
- Application for the quick addition of new friends the so-called Snap-code, an image of a collection of points, something similar to a QR-encoding.
- Ability to overlay various sound and visual effects on your own photos or videos.
- Low demands on system resources of a mobile device.
- A good set of tools for processing photos on Snapchat.
- Built-in video chat.
- A well-thought-out interface that provides the usability of the Snapchat messenger application.
System requirements
Hardware and software requirements for Snapchat to function properly are as follows:
- A processor with a clock frequency of at least 1.5 GHz.
- The RAM volume of a mobile device is from 1 GB.
- The size of the free internal memory of the gadget is at least 100 MB.
- Internet connection.
- Operating system - Android or iOS.
The messenger has very modest requests in terms of device resource consumption, it works reasonably well even on older smartphones.
Installing Snapchat on a personal computer
The developer of the messenger application did not provide the ability to run Snapchat on a computer running a Windows system. However, this limitation can be circumvented by performing the following simple manipulations:
- Download an Android software emulator called Bluestacks. This utility is necessary to recreate a virtual mobile device.
- Install the utility on a personal computer.
- Download Snapchat messenger installer for the Android operating system (file with the .apk extension).
- Run the installation package.
- The .apk file is automatically recognized by the Bluestacks application and will be installed on the virtual mobile device.
After installation, it will be possible to fully work with the messenger in the emulator program window, and Snapchat will absolutely not “notice” the difference.
User reviews
Users of the Snapchat messenger respond differently about its functionality. Someone is happy with everything, and someone, using the program, removes it. Below are the pros and cons of the communicator based on the analysis of reviews about the application on the Internet.
Advantages of the messenger program:
- the opportunity to send your friends the most "unthinking" photos, because they will disappear anyway soon;
- due to the fact that the received messages are deleted, the memory of the mobile device is not cluttered;
- a solid set of various effects superimposed directly on a photo or video image;
- daily updating of the program and a set of pre-installed filter decorations;
- Friendly and ergonomic Snapchat application interface
- the use of geotags;
- built-in voice communication module.
The disadvantages of the program:
- short duration of the existence of messages (not everyone likes, despite the fact that this is the main feature of the messenger);
- application redesign after the last update;
- increased battery consumption of the mobile device when working with the messenger;
- does not work on older versions of Android.
In the dry residue
Still, Snapchat - what is it? The answer is simple: it is an interesting modern messenger with its own advantages and disadvantages. Of course, not everyone will like the very idea of short-lived messages, but such a solution will also have fans who are glad for live communication like here and now.