Snapchat on Wednesday announced a mega redesign of its app separating social from media, creating two distinct content pages. The re-design is a major algorithmic update.
The newly redesigned app will have a different friends’ list and a different news discover page. On the current version of the app, the two are on a single screen.
Snap’s CEO Evan Speigel says “One thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use, and our team has been working on responding to this feedback. As a result, we are currently redesigning our application to make it easier to use.”
The main idea behind Snap’s redesign is to put your friends on one side of the app and brands on the other. In the new design, users will swipe to the left of the main camera screen to see chats, stories and messages from their friends, and swipe to the right for news, Snap Map and publisher content.
“While blurring the lines between professional content creators and your friends have been an interesting Internet experiment, it has also produced some strange side-effects (like fake news) and made us feel like we have to perform for our friends rather than just express ourselves,” the company said in a statement.
The update will start rolling out to a small percentage of users this week and will be more widely available in the coming weeks.
