There is a feature that allows us to read news. When you click on one of the stories on the application, it will show you either a short video or infographics with music, sounds or someone talking, if you are interested, you can swipe upwards and there will be the news in text for you to read. The stories are pretty random stuff like sports, celebrities, certain brand products and national geographic information.
There are not a lot of features in it and I googled it to find out more about what else can Snapchat do for us (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snapchat#Funding_and_valuation), it is definitely not something that I would use for long term though. I think the only thing that appeals to me more is the chatting features! The creating of "stories" and "geofilters" seems really complicated to me. I personally would prefer news feed or dashboards like what Netvibes provides, which I can customize to my own needs.
I went to the website and try to play around with whatever tabs there are, you can create your own geofilters or stories. When I see this I am pretty lost hahaha! I guess it is not really an application that I would use at all.
Maybe I would use the chat functions but it is a novelty, and once you start using it for awhile, it is not going to be as appealing as it is initially. There was a period where a lot of people posted funny videos (vomiting rainbow haha!) or images of them swapping faces with their dogs, cats or friends, but not anymore now (maybe not as much as how it used to be). Are there anyone who uses Snapchat very often? You could probably share with me some of your interesting "stories" that you have created, I will be more than happy to take a look at it haha!
Among the high school students I was collecting data on in May, it was a thing to see how long of a streak you could get on Snapchat -- like a contest, bragging rights. But I think in that context it is the modern day equivalent of passing notes that you want to have destroyed later. (Hmmm. Perhaps I should be snapping rather than texting with one of my friends ...)
ReplyDeleteYes! The snap video that we took and sent to others will eventually be erased after a certain amount of time whether or not the person view the snap video. This function or feature would probably appeal more to people who do not want traces of their information or messages to be archived or stored in some virtual space.
DeleteIt is really fun to record and send all the funny filters to one another, especially when it gets updated pretty often and when some big movies like star wars, x-men etc., the developers will also create filters for those movies! The wow effect is there! Fun stuff!
Thanks for the information about Snapchat. I have no experience with the app at all, but I think I'm going to bite the bullet and sign up for an account this week. If nothing else, the goofy photos seem fun!
ReplyDeleteHey Just! You should just try it out and you don't have to add any friends to play around with all the goofy filters or photos! You can play with it and save those snap videos or photos to your phone just for yourself! It is fun!!
DeleteErnest, good review on Snapchat! I just tried it, and I have to agree, there is really not a lot of features in it, but I guess the novelty and the "fun" factor are worthwhile for people to try it at least once in their lifetime for sure! I just read somewhere that Snapchat is worth $20 Billions!?!? Who knows what the potential could be in the future....
ReplyDeleteHey Dennis!! I guess Snapchat appeals more to middle to high school students, or even young adults! I was pretty surprised too to see that it is worth that much money! And I think the developers are trying to improve on the features and stuff, like the geofilters are pretty new development that they have included to Snapchat! I think it is all about being creative and definitely, in the long run, we would see more interesting and perhaps more useful features on Snapchat in the future!
DeleteHi, Ernest. Great review. I never had Snapchat and downloaded for the class. I played around with some of the features but I didn't see how I could effectively use it at this point with grad students as an instructional tool. If you find something along those lines please post or put it on Twitter. I would be so interested to see how the more creatively minded tweak this tool to make it work for the higher ed environment.
ReplyDeleteHi Sophia! I was also thinking about how Snapchat could be used as an instructional tool as I was exploring it! I think it would be useful for outdoorsy kind of activities like for example (just some random ideas), treasure hunt! Exploring historical sites in a state or a country, the teams have to record a Snapchat video to show that they are at the various checkpoints, through the Snapchat video, the moderator or teacher could verify that the team members are all present and have found the checkpoints, which could be used for scoring purposes! I think its function is more suitable for middle to high school education setting. In a higher ed environment, it is more formal although, we can potentially incorporate such fun applications to maintain motivation or gain learner's attention. It is definitely interesting area to think about!!
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