For once, Snapchat is copying another app’s features.
On Monday, the app released a new feature that mimics TiktTok’s short-form video feed that lets users post content with the hopes of it going viral. The app also plans to give out $1 million per day to motivate people to start using it.
Snapchat Spotlight will provide users with a vertical feed of algorithmically selected videos, and it will join Instagram’s latest copycat feature Reels to try to tap into TikTok’s magic formula.
30-year-old Evan Spiegel, head of Snapchat, says that each day it will make $1 million available to users who post the most-watched videos as a way to keep talented creators on its platform. The size of the payday will depend on an equation that compares the amounts of engagement each popular post gets.
According to reports, the contest will serve as a form of content moderation, encouraging good behavior while discouraging the hate speech and misinformation that have dogged Facebook and Twitter.
Spotlight will take over what was previously the Discover tab in Snapchat’s app, making it immediately visible to its more than 250 million daily active users.
Snapchat rarely adopts the features of other apps. But in the past, other apps like Instagram and Facebook have copied the now-commonplace features created by Snapchat, including the funny face filters and disappearing stories.
Since Monday morning, shares of Snapchat parent company Snap, Inc. were up 4.2 percent at $46.15.
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