Snap used its first Partner Summit on April 4, 2019, to present a broader vision for Snapchat. Rather than relying on disappearing messages and camera effects alone, the company introduced games, original programming, new augmented-reality tools and ways for other apps to connect with Snapchat. Together, the announcements suggested a strategy for competing with Instagram without simply copying its feed.
The pressure was clear. Snap reported 186 million daily active users in the fourth quarter of 2018, unchanged from the previous quarter and slightly below the 187 million recorded a year earlier. A large Piper Jaffray survey from fall 2018 also found that Instagram had passed Snapchat as the most-used social platform among American teenagers, although Snapchat remained the favorite app for many respondents.
Games built around conversation
Snap Games was the summit’s most direct attempt to give friends another reason to remain inside the app. Games could be launched from the Chat bar without a separate installation, while players continued to text or use voice chat. The initial collection included six titles, led by Snap’s own Bitmoji Party and joined by games from partners such as Zynga, Spry Fox, ZeptoLab, Game Closure and PikPok.
This approach treated games as a social activity rather than a destination disconnected from messaging. A group could move from conversation into a short multiplayer session with little friction. Snap also planned to sell its six-second Commercials format inside games, creating a potential source of revenue for both the platform and participating developers.
More reasons to open the camera
The company expanded the idea of its camera as a tool for understanding the world. New Scan functions were designed to recognize music through Shazam, identify products for shopping, and connect visual questions with services such as Photomath. Additional Lens tools could apply effects to people, pets and landmarks. The goal was practical as well as playful: if the Snapchat camera could answer a question or start an activity, users might open it even when they were not preparing a message.
Snap also announced another group of Snap Originals, short scripted and unscripted shows designed for vertical mobile viewing. The company said earlier series had produced encouraging results, including large audiences for Endless Summer and strong completion rates for The Dead Girls Detective Agency. Professionally produced shows offered a different proposition from Instagram’s creator-led IGTV experiment.
Sharing Snapchat beyond Snapchat
App Stories extended parts of the Snapchat experience into services operated by other companies. Developers could let users post Snapchat Stories directly to profiles or communities in their apps. Tinder was among the announced partners, while other integrations involved entertainment and social services. Snap also introduced an Audience Network that would eventually let advertisers extend Snap campaigns into participating third-party apps.
Opening those tools to partners involved a calculated trade-off. Snapchat risked making some of its signature features less exclusive, but it also gained distribution and potential entry points for new users. Instagram had already demonstrated how quickly Stories and camera effects could be reproduced. Snap’s response was to make its technology useful across a wider ecosystem while keeping communication among close friends at the center.
No single summit announcement guaranteed renewed growth. Games needed repeat players, original shows needed sustained audiences, and developer integrations depended on outside adoption. But the collection made Snap’s direction easier to see: compete with Instagram by becoming a camera platform, an entertainment service and a place for lightweight shared experiences, not only an app for sending temporary photographs.
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