(Bloomberg) -- Snap Inc. announced a redesign of its popular Snapchat app, including an updated algorithm for ranking and recommending video content, part of a plan to better compete with rivals like TikTok and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Instagram.
The new design will change the look of Snapchat’s home screen, creating more focus on the camera, chat messages with friends and videos. The redesign will also combine Snapchat’s two existing video feeds, which show content from friends and content creators, respectively, into one feed. The company is rolling out a new algorithm to rank and recommend that video content to Snapchat’s more than 850 million monthly users.
“Right now our community has to go to two different places to get the content that they love from the creators they follow and of course from areas of interest that they’re discovering,” Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel said in an interview before the event. “That’s not only a challenge in terms of user interface, it’s also been a challenge historically on the ranking recommendation, because those ranking systems were separate.”
The redesign comes as Snap looks to better compete with Instagram and ByteDance Ltd.-owned TikTok for the attention of young people, who are increasingly spending their time watching videos online.
Snap has traditionally focused on helping users share and view content from friends and family, including through ephemeral videos called Stories. But the rise of TikTok and other short-form video products has motivated companies like Snap and Meta to lean more aggressively into recommending content from outside of a user’s network.
TikTok, which is known for its viral videos, grew popular in part because its recommendation algorithms can promote content on the app even if the original creator doesn’t have a lot of followers. It’s a strategy that helps creators find new audiences and go viral, and helps viewers discover new posts they didn’t know they wanted.
The rest of the social media industry has rushed to catch up. Snapchat, for example, introduced its own TikTok-like video feed, called Spotlight, in 2020, and Instagram also has a competing product called Reels.
Instagram updated its algorithm earlier this year to recommend more content from smaller creators, even if users didn’t follow them, and Meta executives have been vocal about the company’s pivot toward recommendations.
Snap has also invested heavily in technologies to improve the way it ranks and recommends video content to users. The company is spending roughly $1.5 billion this year on infrastructure to support artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, which in turn help power its recommendation algorithm.
The more time people spend watching video content on Snapchat, the more ads they can see. Snapchat’s monthly users are already spending 25% more time watching video content on Snapchat than they did a year ago, the company told investors last month. That has helped boost the advertising business, which is on track for record annual revenue this year, Spiegel said.
Snap introduced several other new features as part of its annual Partner Summit in Santa Monica, Calif., including AI that can automatically add captions or filters to images. It also announced updates to its AI chatbot that enable it to translate menus in a foreign language or identify plants from pictures taken on Snapchat.
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