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Comment by techthroway443 | Hacker News Reader

From wikipedia: Snapchat is primarily used for creating multimedia messages referred to as "snaps"; snaps can consist of a photo or a short video, and can be edited to include filters and effects, text captions, and drawings.

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I've never seen Snapchat, but that description seems to contradict the sibling saying it can be text only too.

You can send text only messages on Snapchat.

There is also text based chat and video/VOIP chat, neither of which persist without informing the other user.

Interesting. Snapchat sounds a lot more complex than I had envisioned from hearing about it.

For those who aren't upset with Snapchats goals broadening, it's a great utility for many different means of communication. Chat features and multimedia along with an expiration date on all content is something that many people can appreciate in a world of public social networks.

It also has a fairly sophisticated face recognition system (accessed, strangely, by long-pressing your face in a live video window, but only while using the rear-facing camera; it's almost like an Easter Egg but isn't) which it uses to do face swaps and other types of animations on top of video.

I don't know if the app is designed to intentionally hide features to create some sort of "discovery" experience, but there's a lot more to it than is obvious at first glance.

Sounds like a rewarding game, actually, and might appeal to instincts. Not a bad idea in certain applications.

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