Snapchat, the social network lead by the young Evan Spiegel, has eliminated its Lens Store that featured funny 99-cent lenses that functioned in real time with a very advanced face-recognition system, while users enjoyed using their front camera. The company did not previously announce the closing of the store, however it was affirmed in a press release that people who already purchased lenses will still be able to use them.
It wasn’t announced an specific reason that explained why Snapchat decided to eliminate the in-app lens purchases, however, tech experts have suggested that the company is seeking to offer the lenses again but just in alliance with advertiser companies, because it appears that the california-based social network aimed to younger users wasn’t earning so much money from in-app purchases.
It is known that Snapchat had previously sold thousands of lenses, everyday, but revenues would be bigger if the lenses are exclusively dedicated for advertising purposes. According to reports from the Financial Times, an estimated of $450,00 to $750,000 is charged to brands for one single day of a sponsored lens.
Snapchat has always been desired by big tech companies such as Facebook that wanted to buy it. Analysts have calculated that the social network has already a base of 100 million daily active users, which are very engaged, since 65 percent of daily users contribute with new content.
It appears that because the engagement of its users, posts on Snapchat are extremely effective. Last year Nasdaq created an account at the social network in order to publish stock market information, graphics and news, before they were displayed in bigger platforms. Nasdaq said posts on snapchat perform twice as well as other posts.
The video messaging application has always been known for following its own rules, last year the company shut down its Snap Channel that featured original content because it represented a very big financial investment, as Deadline explained.
It appears that when talking about economics, Snapchat is going well, last year it was reported by sources of the Financial Times that the app is registering more than 6 billion video views per day, which is 300 percent more of the amount it counted by May the same year.
Analysts are impressed with the numbers, since 6 billion video views per day are not so far from the 8 billion views per day Facebook said it has, because the latter has a huge base of 1.01 billion daily active users.
Source: Re/code