Class 10: Snapchat as a collaboration Tool

SNAPCHAT:

In one of the recent snapchat updates, they added a feature that allows friends to transfer cash to one another. Snapchat partnered with a company called Square Cash. Square cash is a money transferring app that allows you to transfer money to your friends quick and easy if you don’t have cash in hand. To do this you must first make an account with Square Cash. Once you have an account all you have to do is go to the text chat page of Snapchat and type a dollar sign ($) followed by a numerical value. It will then ask for confirmation before transferring the money to it’s desired destination. For example, if I wanted to send a dollar to a friend of mine, I would go to a blank text chat page on Snapchat, find their username, and send them a message that reads “$1.00.” Once I confirm that I want to send a dollar to that particular friend, it would transfer into their account.

One of the features that was launched last fall is called “my story” which is an interface that lets users share multiple snaps with all of their friends in a feed that will not disappear for 48 hours. Now it is expanded to the “our story” feature.

Snapchat is a great way to communicate with friends, posting pictures and videos creating a great collaborative environment that does not get old as it expires quickly.  As many have said, one picture is worth a thousand words,the messages come across to give it context.  The flexibility of having this social media tool on the iphone makes the use very easy. It is a good venue but I have to say I like instagram better as it is a better ”collaborative” too.  Snapchat has a great financial tool as well called snapcash.

Also in a recent snapchat update, the ability to video chat live with another person was added to the software. Previously snapchat only supported sending photographs and videos up to 10 seconds long, but now with the video chat feature snapchat can become a quick conference collaboration tool. A video chat on snapchat can be opened in only a few seconds, and closed immediately, removing any signing into skype or other video chat software, and can even be quicker than facetime on iPhones because connection can happen much faster, and the other person does not have to have an iPhone.

One piece of information about snapchat that I did not know came from team Dartmouth’s report and told how the app itself was made by three Stanford University students. This is an example of what a simple collaboration project can become.