1-0 Snapchat in the Social Media World Cup

Tensions are running high and not just in the football world!

Amidst Facebook’s recent privacy scandal their rival Snapchat is looking to take full advantage by introducing a new way for its users to log into other apps using their Snapchat profiles, this time without sharing a long list of personal details! Now that’s a banger of a goal!

For years Snapchat has been closed off to developers, unlike their rivals Facebook and Twitter who offer public API which lets outsiders build features using the app or the data.

However, things are beginning to change… Snap announced today that it is launching four new APIs, including a Snap login API that as mentioned will let people use their Snapchat username to create accounts on other apps, and what amounts to a Snap camera API, which will let people share things from other apps directly to their Snapchat Story.

Another API will let you use your Bitmoji avatar inside other apps, like Tinder‘s messaging feature, and the last API will let developers use public snaps (user photos and videos) to create themed Stories on a third-party app or website.

It would be reasonable to suggest that their recent moves, in theory, will help Snapchat grow its brand with people who don’t already use the app. Their recent app redesign may have slowed its growth but their fighting to come back with a bang. If people start seeing Stories on third-party websites, it could help encourage more sign-ups, or at the very least help, people understand what Snapchat does.

The Snapchat login option could also help retain existing users who may have fizzled out after the redesign. If you rely on your Snapchat account to get into other apps, you probably won’t delete it.

As mentioned, leakage of the huge amounts of data stored on social networking sites through the third-party apps that plug into their platforms has become a cause of growing concern in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Therefore, Snap’s timing with these APIs opens the company to some scrutiny. Seeing as Facebook just spent the past three months trying to clean up a mess that was created because the company shared too much user data through its login feature. However, it seems that Snap learned from some of Facebook‘s mistakes.

Snap‘s APIs will share much less information with developers than Facebook’s APIs did. For example, Snap’s login API only gives developers access to a person’s Snapchat username. It does not give them access to any other data such as their age or location, and Snap VP of Product Jacob Andreou says, “we definitely are not planning on ever making the full friends list available to developers.” “Privacy and security have really been at the centre of everything we’ve done throughout the lifetime of the company,” “This isn’t even something that’s just the product of the recent changes in the climate.”

The new features are just the latest shot in the ongoing war between social rivals Snapchat and Facebook. Recently, Snap has gone on the offensive, with its chief executive, Evan Spiegel, quipping last month, in relation to the Cambridge Analytica scandal: “We would really appreciate it if they copied our data protection practices also.”

I would say it’s 1-0 to Snap, but let’s see what happens in the next leg of the tournament!