Snapchat update lets Stories spread via text, email, even Facebook

Sending and viewing snaps isn't just for Snapchat anymore. No, we're not talking about jumping ship to Instagram Stories.

On Tuesday, Snap introduced an un-Snapchat-like move that allows users to send links of Snapchat Stories for viewing outside of the Snapchat app. This change means anyone — not just Snapchat users — can see snaps from celebrities, media partners, and some everyday users via desktop and mobile thanks to a new web player.

So, yeah, forget about Snapchat being just for the kids on Snapchat. Anyone can see what's happening on Snapchat, at least from publicly shared snaps. The move opens up Snapchat in a way that's similar to Twitter introducing embedded tweets in 2011 and Facebook with embedded posts in 2013. Media companies, for example, could use embeddable Stories to share Snapchat's exclusive footage from breaking news events, which is one of Snap's big bets. The links do disappear after 30 days, however.

The change breaks from the exclusivity/FOMO nature of Snapchat, but as Snapchat undergoes slowing growth and faces the wrath of the public market, these product shifts seem necessary to grow the audience. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel listed content, along with user growth and augmented reality, as his new priorities for 2018.

Here's how the new feature works:

Snapchat users can create links to Stories by holding down on the "tile" on the Discover page.

Then, they can copy that link and share it over text, email, or to another social network like Facebook or Twitter, for example.

If users share the link to Facebook, it shows up similarly to a YouTube link, meaning it doesn't auto-play. For Twitter, links to Snapchat Stories can play within a tweet.

The new link tool applies to Official Stories (from celebrities or influencers), Our Stories (curated by Snapchat's editorial team), and Search Stories (algorithmically curated based on topic or location). It does not include Publisher Stories or Shows, for now. (Disclosure: Mashable is a Discover partner.)

While most content on Snapchat lasts for 24 hours, these links will be available for longer and will maintain all of the individual snaps unless a Snapchat user or curator chooses to delete them. Official Stories are only available for 24 hours. Our Stories and Search Stories are available for 30 days.

For users, one benefit of viewing Stories through the Snapchat player: no ads.

For publishers, they now have the ability to direct viewers to their own websites instead of just Snapchat for the once-platform-exclusive content. Snapchat experimented with a web player during the 2016 Oscars with an Our Story that featured snaps from the red carpet and audience shots.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The update is only available to users who also have Snapchat's redesign. The redesign, announced in October, is live in Canada, Australia, the U.K., and has been beta tested worldwide. All Snapchat users are expected to have it over the next few weeks, according to a Snap spokesperson.

As Facebook continues to copy Snapchat's features, Snap is doubling down on the uniqueness of its content and hiring more people to promote it. Last month, Snap hired Rahul Chopra, former CEO of Storyful, an agency that sources and verifies content on the web. Last week, Snapchat's recently promoted head of platform content Mike Su emailed Snapchat's media partners about its first-ever publisher summit, Digiday reported.

That "charm offensive," as Digiday described, is coming with some hurdles. Snap recently laid off about two dozen employees, mostly in the content division, but the team is re-staffing. The layoffs are in part because of Snap's decision to grow its news team out of the company's headquarters in Venice, California.

Meanwhile, Facebook is pushing further away from news in an effort to inspire more people to post and communicate.