It’s a banner week for Snapchat. The company has announced a new version of its Spectacles which appear to be an improvement on the original. It’s also shown off Snappables, AR games you can play with friends. In between that news, however, it’s come to light the company is also going to start testing unskippable video ads.
The details: According to DigiDay, Snapchat is flirting with the idea of running unskippable six-second ads on some of its biggest shows — though not in the Discover section or your Stories. An insider said the company was using the fact that “so much of the Snapchat generation has gotten accustomed to watching ads to get content” to rationalize the change.
The bigger picture: If this were the only major change to Snapchat recently, it wouldn’t be worth noting. But Snapchat’s recent history of fiddling with its app has already raised the ire of users. If the company follows the same playbook of brute-forcing the change on its users, it could be in for some trouble.
Snapchat’s policy towards adapting users to change appears to be “stick with it until they stop complaining.” When a Change.org petition begging the company to undo the app redesign got 1 million signatures, the company responded by assuring the petitioners the app would “adapt to you the more that you use it” and also said it was just hoping users would “settle in.”
The test will allegedly begin sometime in May.
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