Snapchat to feature advertising this weekend, but it’s mum on from whom
Snapchat is about to make money.
The messaging app based in Los Angeles said Friday that this weekend it plans to place an advertisement in the app, likely a video, that users in the U.S. can voluntarily watch by clicking a link within a section that links to multimedia updates from their friends. Like those updates from friends, called “Stories,” the ad will disappear 24 hours after it is posted.
It’ll be “a surprise” what company will run the advertisement, a Snapchat spokeswoman Mary Ritti said.
After launching more than three years ago as a way for friends to exchange photos that would disappear after a few seconds, Snapchat has become a worldwide go-to for teenagers and millennials with potentially more than 100 million users and at least $163 million in venture capital.
“It’s the first time we’ve done anything like this because it’s the first time we’ve been paid to put content in that space,” Snapchat said in a statement Friday. “”It’s going to feel a little weird at first, but we’re taking the plunge.”
Snapchat said it’s seeking for ads to be “fun and informative, the way ads used to be, before they got creepy and targeted. It’s nice when all of the brilliant creative minds out there get our attention with terrific content.”
And the company admitted, “We need to make money.”
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