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Snap Inc. is in development on what is a ‘lite version of Snapchat’, the company’s Chief Executive Evan Spiegel noted in a letter to his employees available on Snap Inc. website Tuesday. According to the CEO, the simplified version in the platform is an initiative to enhance accessibility and ease of utilization on the platform. For anyone who remembers Snapchat's 2018 overhaul, this news isn't likely to breed confidence.
Spiegel's letter on Tuesday looked to boost morale among employees after a dismal year thus far for the stock price, which has declined almost 50% through 2024. "Investors are worried that our growth isn't accelerating," Spiegel wrote in the letter.
A "simplified" Snapchat perhaps offers up an impression that more older users could be enticed in; those who are confused by the design of the app, which is less intuitive. To date, Snapchat has done a much better job of attracting a younger audience that seems to understand the app, but this isn't the first time it's tried to solve these problems. You might remember Snap's 2017 earnings call, in which Spiegel copped to having heard "Snapchat is hard to understand or use" - particularly for older people.
A few months later, Snap debuted a major redesign that was supposed to win back those users by combining Stories with private messages, as well as several other tweaks that actually managed to drive away more people than it attracted. A petition, "Remove the new Snapchat update", filed in 2018, garnered 1.2 million signatures, and famous influential people like Kylie Jenner, Chrissy Teigen, and Marquez Braunley expressed disappointment. Worse, he reordered views and income of advertisement on the platform, which pushed his young user base while the elderly could not be attracted at the same time. By May 2018, Snap was rushing to take back some of the changes it had made.
In Tuesday's letter, he writes that early tests of the simplified redesign have been "directionally positive," though the CEO tempers this with "we will be thoughtful and deliberate about making a change of this magnitude." He's almost definitely alluding to the 2018 redesign failure, which I'm sure nobody at Snap forgot. News of the new, streamlined version of Snapchat was sewn into Spiegel's bigger thoughts about Snap's business strategy-arguing that Snap's efforts in augmented reality glasses, which the company calls "Spectacles," will create an uncontested market. Maybe he's playing make-believe that meta Ray-Ban augmented reality glasses aren't a thing?
In an effort to boost Snapchat's ailing ad business, Spiegel unveiled new ad formats dubbed "Sponsored Snaps" and "Promoted Places". First, the advertiser will be able to send Snapchat directly into the mailbox of the user and the cat, and at the same time the advertiser will be able to advertise the direction of the SNAP card.
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