The most recent efforts of Snap to fight back against slow growth and the ever-looming threat of Facebook is to bring its flagship Stories product to the web. By so doing, both Snapchat users and those who don’t have accounts on the mobile app can view the photos and videos.
Starting in the next few weeks, Snap said that in tandem with an extensive rollout of its redesigned mobile app, it will add a new share option to Story tiles in its Discover section. From this point, users will have the ability to share a link via text or email outside of the main Snapchat app. To view these Stories on the web, Snap is launching a desktop web viewer available over at Snapchat.com. The company stated that users in Australia and Canada, both of which have broader access to the redesigned app, can start sharing on the web today.
Snap is following up to carefully clarify that the share option will only work for three varieties of public Stories: its Official Stories, Our Stories, and Search Stories. Official Stories are Stories created by verified Snapchat accounts like those of entertainment organizations, media, and sports, as well as celebrities. Snap says that these Stories will remain available on the web for about 30 days. Users will be able to share that content by finding it in the Discover section of the app, and then pressing and holding down on the tile to pull up the new share option.
Our Stories are the collaborative, sourced from the crowd variety of Stories that Snap launched back in 2014 and it allows users to publicly contribute snaps to a shared group that anyone on the app can view. Snap says that, similar to the mobile situation, Our Stories will be available on the web for up to 24 hours before they disappear. Search Stories is one other way to access public, user-generated snaps by searching keywords, and Snap says those will be available on the web for 30 days, just like Official Stories.
