Snapchat Pushes You To Watch Friends’ Stories

Snapchat Stories are a huge hit, with the photos and videos you post to your profile now more popular than Snap messages. But they’re still easy to forget about since they’re pull and not push — they aren’t sent to friends directly and don’t generate alerts. You had to seek them out. Until now. Snapchat confirms to me it’s started “sometimes” sending push notifications that remind you that several friends have stories for you to watch. This way you don’t have to nag your friends to peer into the quirky moments of your life because Snapchat will quietly do that for you.

Story notifications fundamentally change the unobtrusive pull nature of Stories, which made them a refreshing alternative to its traditional direct messaging feature or injecting your posts into friends’ Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds. You could share a selfie or glamorous moment without having to feel like a jerk since friends had to go looking for them. The question is whether Snapchat can sustain that casual attitude while playing the secret postman, pinging your friends to drive you, and it, more Story views.

Previously, Snapchat had been one of the most conservative and respectful social apps when it came to interrupting you. No shallow alerts that someone Liked your photo, viewed your profile, or retweeted your quip. It only tugged your pant leg when someone sent something straight to you.

But social is a battle for eyeballs, and no one else showed such restraint. Twitter and Facebook will use any excuse to send you a push or email, with Twitter getting more brazen as of late, telling you when friends all followed someone or a few people were discussing a TV show or current event. Snapchat is well within its bounds to get a bit more aggressive.

Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence I’ve collected suggests early core Snapchat users might be sending fewer direct snaps lately. I’m getting far fewer per day than I did a year ago, my friends report the same, and several have told me their younger family members who were formerly addicted are becoming less keen to blast out funny faces, drawings, and random windows into their life.

Snapchat Stories is thriving, with over 1 billion views per day as of June in part thanks to aburgeoning community of creators who’ve become Snapchat celebrities. It’s also a potential gateway to monetization, which just got their own dedicated section in the app. Yet they’re often viewed after someone returns to the app from a direct snap notification. If those pushes dry up, Stories could get fewer incidental views.

And so, Story pushes. A sign Snapchat may be shifting its priority to making Stories a strong, independent product that don’t need no direct snaps to get by. Most people think of Snapchat as photos that last 10-seconds or less. But the rise of Stories could make their 24-hour self-destruct timer the new standard.

Kuddle, An “Instagram With Training Wheels,” Introduces Social Media To Kids

A new mobile application called Kuddle is introducing a safer way for kids to get introduced to social media, while still under a parent’s watchful eye. The photo-sharing app, which is like a more restricted version of Instagram, allows children to post and share photos with friends in a protected environment, safe from cyberbullying or unwanted connections from strangers.

Founded in March by a team of Norway-based developers and designers, all with kids of their own, the idea was prompted by co-founder and CEO Ole Vidar Hestaas’s experience raising his children. His 7-year old son wanted to be on Instagram, like his older sister was, but of course that’s not allowed…or, frankly, a good idea at that age.

After looking for an app designed with the safety and security needs of children and parents in mind, and not finding anything at all, he decided to build one.

Co-founder and executive chairman, Kathryn Moore Baker, was in private equity when she was first introduced to the team, and says she fell in love with the idea.

“I loved the idea of doing something that was good for kids. I’m the mother of two girls, 18 and 14, and the whole time [the team was] telling me about the idea, I was thinking, I wished I had this when [my children] were getting their first introduction to social media,” she says.

Baker, along with other angels, including Wibecke Nagell-Erichsen and international golfer Suzann ‘Tutta’ Pettersen, also invested in the company, which has now raised just under $1 million.

How It’s Safer

The app is designed from the ground-up to offer a safer environment than something like Instagram. Children have to input their parent’s email at sign-up, but can begin to use the app right away. However, their photos can’t be viewed or seen by others until the parent approves the account via the email they receive.

Afterwards, parents are notified every time a child posts a photo and every time they add a friend. (Because children don’t have their own Facebook account and friend list, they search for friends by name.)

In addition, photos will appear only in approved friends’ feeds, and are not geo-tagged so as not to reveal a child’s location.

Importantly, there are no comments allowed on photos. While kids can caption and even draw on their own photos with provided tools, friends can only view and like those images, not respond with text.

Though based in Norway, the app is COPPA-compliant, a U.S. regulation related to software and services designed for children. Children aren’t marketed to, and their info isn’t shared, says Baker.

Should Kids Use Social Media?

Some may argue that children shouldn’t be using social media at all at a younger age, but that’s not entirely realistic. With Kuddle, they can at least have the experience of sharing on mobile with friends, while opening the door to productive conversations with parents about what’s appropriate.

Kuddle, I feel, comes just in time for today’s youngest generation, as the kids of Millennials and Gen X’ers are now receiving their first smartphones at ever-younger ages (often now in the single-digits and pre-teens!). Even PBS is urging parents to “wait until preschool” at least.

Though there’s a plethora of educational apps and games, younger children are naturally drawn to what the “big kids” use. Today, that’s social media services like Facebook and Instagram, where you’re supposed to be 13 or older to register. Many kids just lie, in order to sign up.

Kuddle, which will always be free for children and will never sell things via in-app purchases, sees this app as the first step in a larger vision for the company which will focus on helping parents make better choices when it comes to their kids’ mobile usage, possibly through subscription services.

“Our revenue streams will come from areas where we can help parents make good choices such as safer devices, child-friendly mobile subscriptions, and safer search engines,” hints Baker. These products will be developed in partnership with others, and will be marketed to parents who will make the final buying decision.

In the meantime, Kuddle is a free download on iTunes and Google Play.