Snapchat is rolling out some new choices to assist drive ongoing engagement, and cater to group chats within the app, with “Infinite Retention,” which allows customers to avoid wasting their chats within the app ongoing, and “Group Streaks,” which, because it sounds, will present one other means to gamify ongoing connection within the app.
First off, on infinite retention. Veering additional away from Snap’s unique, ephemeral content material method, infinite retention allows you to hold your chats within the app in perpetuity, should you select.
Which, evidently, is one thing that Snapchatters have been requesting.
As defined by Snap:
“We’ve typically heard from our neighborhood that Snapchatters need to save their chats eternally. Infinite Retention can now be enabled for every particular person dialog, and everybody receives a transparent notification when the setting modifications.”
Which, as famous, is one other step away from Snap’s disappearing content material roots, however on condition that some customers may already do that anyway, it’s probably not that massive of a shift.
Final yr, Snapchat started testing the choice to pick out “By no means delete” in your messaging retention choices, which primarily makes Snap DMs identical to each different messaging app.
Infinite retention is seemingly an enlargement of this to extra customers, underneath a distinct identify. Which, once more, shifts your messages right into a extra conventional DM setting, the place issues received’t disappear at any time (until you manually delete them).
That would dilute Snap’s key level of differentiation, however clearly, Snapchat is assured that there’s a consumer demand for this setting, enabling extra individuals to maintain their in-app discussions.
Perhaps that’s factor, however I don’t know. It feels prefer it’s not Snapchat, although given the way in which by which individuals join within the app, it does make sense.
Snap’s different new characteristic replace is Group Streaks, which is able to see all chat individuals contributing to a collective streak.
“Group Streaks will proceed so long as a lot of the members take part, so it’s straightforward to maintain it going. Like different Streaks, they’re completely non-obligatory, and personal, and you’ll restore the Streak inside every week of when it ended if you wish to hold it going.”
So it’s fairly primary, an enlargement of Snap Streaks to group chats as nicely, which may add a brand new sharing dynamic, and assist to maintain individuals coming again to the app. And Snap says that there are various teams of people who find themselves already working long-running group chats who will welcome this new addition.
Each look like pretty minor purposeful modifications within the broader scheme, given the present state of Snap, even when non-disappearing messages is a giant change inside itself.
And as Snapchat seeks to seek out new development alternatives, and new methods to spice up its attraction, you may count on it to maintain making an attempt out new engagement and interplay choices.
