Snapchat’s rolling out some new features for the holidays, which are designed to give your Snap experience a Christmas-themed refresh.
Well, if you’re a Snapchat+ subscriber at least.
First off, Snapchat+ subscribers will get access to new app theme options, including seasonal backgrounds and buttons.
As you can see in these examples, the alternative themes will make our app look more Christmas-y, with new color palettes and presentation styles.
Snapchat+ users will be able to pick from a selection of preset color schemes and “transform the look and feel of their Snapchat across every tab.”
And they do look interesting. Maybe not quite interesting enough to pay for Snapchat+ if you’re not a passionate Snap user, but interesting nonetheless.
Snap’s also rolling out new Bitmoji reactions in chats (also for Snapchat+ subscribers only).
So if you’re a paying user, you’ll have all-new ways to use your Bitmoji character to quickly respond to comments in-stream.
That may well get a few more people signing up to the program, which already has 12 million subscribers.
For non-paying users, Snapchat’s also got an updated selection of holiday-themed Lenses, including a new AI-generated “Ugly Sweater” generator.
It’s also rolling out an option to save all of the messages in a conversation for seven days.
Which seems to go against a key commandment of Snapchat use, in that your messages auto delete after 24 hours. But maybe, with people going away on holidays, and teens potentially losing access to their device, or connectivity, over the period, having a long retention time will be of value.
It won’t save your Snap Streaks, but at least you’ll still be able to view your chats.
Worth noting, too, that Snapchat+ subscribers can already opt-in to keeping their Stories active for up to a week. So maybe diverting from Snap’s traditional time limits is not as sacred as it was once considered.
The longer retention time is opt-in, by all chat participants, and Snapchat hasn’t noted whether this is a temporary addition for the period, or a permanent setting from now on.
These are some interesting updates, which could help Snap to boost interest over the holidays, and get more users paying for its add-on elements.
And with Snap also recently expanding its Snapchat+ gifting options, you can imagine that many teens will be excitedly logging into these new features on Christmas Day.
