Adding friends on Snapchat can be a pain in the arse: You have to open the app, pull down the menu bar to reveal your personalised Snapcode, have your friend open their Snapchat app, focus the camera on your (more than likely) smudged screen and have them take a photo. Or you have to sit there spelling out your username (“It’s A, double U – no, not W, two Us…”). Now, you can just send them a link.
Snapchat quietly released a new feature that lets users create a unique URL that can be easily shared with friends. To access the code, pull down on the menu bar in camera mode, and click “Add Friends”. You’ll then see a menu item called “Share Username”.
You can send the link via text or any other messaging service. When someone opens the URL from their phone, it will automatically prompt Snapchat to add you as a new user.
The update is significant because it streamlines the friend-adding process, and allows people to share their links on other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, so that they can rack up viewers quickly. For anyone that loves broadcasting stories every day, this is a huge benefit.
The update is just the latest change to Snapchat. In September, the company added horrifying “lenses” that use facial recognition technology to distort expressions in animated and strange ways. There’s also a rumour that the company will be adding new voice and video controls following purportedly leaked screenshots that surfaced earlier this week. Get your snap on.
Image via Flickr