Despite the “reputation” that Snapchat has gotten for being a source of a lot of ephemeral relationships, we’d have to admit that it is slowly becoming a legitimate source of messaging and communication, at least amongst the younger people. A new version of their Chat feature, which is actually version 2.0, will help make it a threat to other messaging apps like Viber, WhatsApp, Messenger, Hangouts, etc as it combines audio, video, GIFs, and stickers, with more to come probably.
In their blog post, Snapchat says that they want to make this feature the next best thing to hanging out face to face with your family members or friends. Aside from the ability to just do plain ole chatting with your contacts, you will also be able to have an audio chat (bringing to mind the shortwave radio chats we used to have back in the day), or leave them an audio message as well. You can also do video chats with your friends, just like you were talking in person, only digitally of course.
If you don’t want to communicate with words or videos, you can also send messages through GIFs and stickers. You won’t believe how many people actually talk to each other through these now and they apparently understand each other, even without the benefit of alpha numerical characters. Outside of Chat 2.0, you will also now be able to send photos while you’re doing video or audio calls and the image will be overlaid on the chat window.
This update also brings Auto-Advance Stories which automatically starts the next story after you’ve finished reading or looking through the current story. The update should be rolling out to users, but of course not all at the same time, so wait patiently for it.
SOURCE: Snapchat
