Snapchat has started rolling out Minis – a feature that brings third-party services to the platform. Notably, the feature was first announced last month at its Snap Partner Summit.
“Snap Minis are a new way for developers to bring their services inside Snapchat and empower new, social experiences. We’ve carefully designed Minis to deeply integrate within your conversations, so coordinating with friends is faster than ever,” describes the company.
Snapchat has enabled four Snap Minis namely Headspace, Flashcards, Prediction Master, and Let’s Do It. Headspace is a meditation service, whereas Flashcards is for studying with peers. Prediction Master, as the name hints, is for making predictions, and Let’s Do It is for planning with friends.
Moreover, Coachella will soon release a Snap Mini to help you plan festival trips. There will also be a movie ticketing system and a mini-app for sharing class schedules. However, we will have to wait to see when these mini-apps make their way to Snapchat.
The rollout comes just a week after the company expanded its mental health tool ‘Here for You‘ to India. Here for You shows safety resources when users search for topics such as anxiety, depression, stress, grief, suicidal thoughts, and bullying.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time an app is implementing mini in-app experiences. Popular Chinese chat app WeChat has various mini-apps that offers several functionalities to users. It will be interesting to see if Snapchat users would actively start using these features. If they do, the company might be partnering with more companies to get their services onboard.
