Minis Are Here, Miniature Third-Party Apps In Snapchat

Snapchat Minis, bite-sized third party-apps built within Snapchat rolled out on Monday. Snapchat first previewed Minis, a lightweight, built on HTML at the 2020 Partner Summit back last month.

Four out of seven Minis debuts across the platform. These mini-apps are going  live:

Meditation tool Headspace, studying collaboration tool by Tembo, an interactive messaging tool Prediction Master and Let’s do it, a mini-app by Snap.

Other minis apps -festival trip planning by Coachella, Atom’s movie ticketing, and student’s schedule planner Saturn are yet to go live.

The Easiest Way To Meditate Is With Headspace Mini

Headspace mini is a part of the initiative “to help support the mental health and emotional wellbeing of SnapChatters, said a Snap spokesperson. 

Why it matters

The user base of Snapchat is one of the youngest on the social. Media as it reaches more under 30 years old who are coping up with missed schools, job loss, and socialization in the pandemic.

Details

Users can access minis within the chat and can also check-in the sessions with friends. Users can choose from the six meditation sessions of three-four minutes. According to research conducted by Snapchat, late last year reveals that young audience consults friends first about mental health issues over parents. This new tool is even more crucial at present as it will help users (especially the young audience) to deal with a range of mental challenges in the pandemic. A Headspace spokesperson said in an email to The Verge,

“By putting these useful resources front and center where friends already meet and share, we believe Snapchat can play a unique role in empowering friends to help each other through difficult times.”

Will It Replicate WeChat Success?

Even though it’s a new and fresh concept in the U.K and the U.S, this mini-App model is famous in Asian Markets. For instance, Tencent’s WeChat has over 1 million mini-app programs that allow users to perform various tasks. Also, mobile payment services Paytm and PhonePe in India has rolled out several services like flight booking, movie tickets, or ordering a cab.

Snapchat has said previously that Tencent, an investor app in L.A influenced it to replicate the WeChat-style super app. It is a win-win situation for both parties-Snapchat and developers who are making the mini-apps. Snapchat can boost user engagement and developers can access a whole new set of audiences. Facebook, last month, had a little success over replication of the WeChat model through chatbots on Messengers. 

Now, it remains to be seen, what is the audience response to the mini-app model as Snapchat gains inroads to the U.S, U.K, and other markets.