Users around the world are logging in to messaging apps to not only chat with friends but also to connect with brands, browse merchandise, and watch content. What were once simple services for exchanging messages, pictures, videos, and GIFs have evolved into expansive ecosystems with their own developers, apps, and APIs.

Chat apps boast a number of distinct characteristics that make their audiences particularly appealing to businesses and marketers, including their size, retention and usage rates, and user demographics. The combined user base of the top four chat apps is larger than the combined user base of the top four social networks. Chat apps also have higher retention and usage rates than most mobile apps. Finally, the majority of their users are young, an extremely important demographic for brands, advertisers and publishers.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we take a close look at the size of the messaging app market, how these apps are changing, and the types of opportunities for monetization that have emerged from the growing audience that uses messaging services daily.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Mobile messaging apps are massive. The largest services have hundreds of millions of monthly active users (MAU). Falling data prices, cheaper devices, and improved features are helping propel their growth.
• Messaging apps are about more than messaging. The first stage of the chat app revolution was focused on growth. In the next phase, companies will focus on building out services and monetizing chat apps’ massive user base.
• Popular Asian messaging apps like WeChat, KakaoTalk, and LINE have taken the lead in finding innovative ways to keep users engaged. They’ve also built successful strategies for monetizing their services.
• Media companies, and marketers are still investing more time and resources into social networks like Facebook and Twitter than they are into messaging services. That will change as messaging companies build out their services and provide more avenues for connecting brands, publishers, and advertisers with users.

In full, this report:

• Gives a high-level overview of the messaging market in the US by comparing total monthly active users for the top chat apps.
• Examines the user behavior of chat app users, specifically what makes them so attractive to brands, publishers, and advertisers.
• Identifies what distinguishes chat apps in the West from their counterparts in the East.
• Discusses the potentially lucrative avenues companies are pursuing to monetize their services.
• Offers key insights and implications for marketers as they consider interacting with users through these new platforms.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >>Learn More Now
2. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now

PS. Did you know...

Our BI Intelligence INSIDER Newsletters are currently read by thousands of business professionals first thing every morning. Fortune 1000 companies, startups, digital agencies, investment firms, and media conglomerates rely on these newsletters to keep atop the key trends shaping their digital landscape — whether it is mobile, digital media, e-commerce, payments, or the Internet of Things.

Our subscribers consider the INSIDER Newsletters a "daily must-read industry snapshot" and "the edge needed to succeed personally and professionally"— just to pick a few highlights from our recent customer survey.

With our full money-back guarantee, we make it easy to find out for yourself how valuable the daily insights are for your business and career.  Click this link to learn all about the INSIDER Newsletters today.

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One of the hallmarks of Snapchat is that messages you send in the app disappear once they're viewed. It's what initially labeled Snapchat as a sexting app, and it remains a core aspect of the social network today.

There has, however, always been a trick to seeing a message in Snapchat more than once. You were able to replay one message every 24 hours, and if you wanted more replays at your disposal you could pay a $0.99 in-app purchase.

Snapchat drastically changed how replays work with an update on Thursday night. The same update added the ability to face swap with photos from your camera roll. 

Instead of only getting one free replay every 24 hours, every single message you receive in Snapchat can be replayed once before it expires. When you try to reply a snap for the first time after updating the app, you'll see this message explaining the change:

The only catch is that you have to stay on the left side of the Snapchat app where you initially received the message to replay it. If you open a message, navigate away from it, and then go back to try and replay it you'll be out of luck.

And yes, that means Snapchat has killed purchasable replays. The feature was launched in September 2015 and was the last in-app purchase you could make in Snapchat after the Lens store was shuttered in January.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Two simple ways to make your Snapchat captions longer

By now you've probably seen people swapping faces in Snapchat. It produces a hilarious and often frightening effect.

Until now, you could only face swap with someone if you were both in the camera view of Snapchat's app. It was an inherent limitation that kept the feature reserved for people you're physically next to (or maybe an inanimate object that looked like a face if you were lucky). 

Now Snapchat lets you face swap with any photo in your phone's camera roll, which is a game changer. It's insanely fun to play with.

You can find Snapchat's camera roll face swap by tapping and holding on your face to activate the app's list of special lenses.

You'll eventually find this purple face swap lens next to the original yellow one. It will automatically pull up photos in your camera roll that have faces to swap with.

Just tap on each photo to have the face placed over your own. Here I am as Kylie Jenner, Kanye West, Nic Cage, and DJ Khaled:

Social media may still only drive a small share of total online retail sales, but its impact is becoming impossible to ignore. Social-driven retail sales and referral traffic are rising at a faster pace than all other online channels. 

The top 500 retailers earned $3.3 billion from social shopping in 2014, up 26% from 2013, according to the Internet Retailer's Social Media 500. That is well ahead of the roughly 16% growth rate for the overall e-commerce market in the US. 

Now new initiatives from a number of different social networks are making these platforms absolutely essential for retailers that want to drive sales and boost engagement.

In a new report from BI Intelligence we analyze social media's role in online retail — whether that's driving direct sales with the use of embedded "Buy" buttons on social media posts, or referring traffic to retailers' websites and apps. We measure the impact social media has on e-commerce by looking at metrics such as conversion rates, average order value, and revenue generated by shares, likes, and tweets. We also outline the latest commerce efforts by leading social networks. 

Here are some of the key points from the report: 

• Social is driving much bigger increases in retail traffic than any other online channel. Social media increased its share of e-commerce referrals nearly 200% between the first quarters of 2014 and 2015. 
• For retailers to maintain these social gains, they will need to pay special attention to mobile, where social engagement with retail content is still limited. Social media users are 35% less likely to share a brand's or retailer's social post on mobile than they are on desktop computers.
• Facebook continues to grow its lead as the dominant social commerce platform. Facebook accounts for 50% of total social referrals and 64% of total social revenue. The site's changing demographics could make older consumers a strong target for retailers leveraging the platform. 
• Pinterest is a major social commerce player despite a relatively small user base. The pinning platform drives 16% of social revenue despite an audience 6.5 times smaller than Twitter. New buy and action buttons on retailer posts should make Pinterest an even stronger referral and revenue engine for brands.
• Twitter is losing its influence for mass-market merchants, but it could still have a role to play among sporting and events marketers, especially for location-based promotions. Recently, NFL and NBA teams have used Twitter to sell game tickets and merchandise. 
• Instagram doesn't drive significant sales activity for retailers but high-end companies have been leveraging the platform for branding purposes. New Buy buttons on paid posts, as well as increased targeting capabilities, could make the app a more important direct-response driver.

In full, the report: 

• Sizes social media's role for retailers compared to other referral sources such as search and email. 
• Examines how social media's transition to mobile is impacting the role of different social platforms.
• Looks at how the different social networks stack up in terms of conversion rates, share of social-generated retail sales, and average order value. 
• Highlights up-and-coming social commerce players such as Snapchat and Instagram, and how brands are using them for influencer marketing. 
• Outlines the latest major commerce moves by Facebook and Twitter, which could help drive up conversion rates from social. 

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >>Learn More Now
2. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now

PS. Did you know...

Our BI Intelligence INSIDER Newsletters are currently read by thousands of business professionals first thing every morning. Fortune 1000 companies, startups, digital agencies, investment firms, and media conglomerates rely on these newsletters to keep atop the key trends shaping their digital landscape — whether it is mobile, digital media, e-commerce, payments, or the Internet of Things.

Our subscribers consider the INSIDER Newsletters a "daily must-read industry snapshot" and "the edge needed to succeed personally and professionally"— just to pick a few highlights from our recent customer survey.

With our full money-back guarantee, we make it easy to find out for yourself how valuable the daily insights are for your business and career.  Click this link to learn all about the INSIDER Newsletters today.

Join the conversation about this story »

Social media may still only drive a small share of total online retail sales, but its impact is becoming impossible to ignore. Social-driven retail sales and referral traffic are rising at a faster pace than all other online channels. 

The top 500 retailers earned $3.3 billion from social shopping in 2014, up 26% from 2013, according to the Internet Retailer's Social Media 500. That is well ahead of the roughly 16% growth rate for the overall e-commerce market in the US. 

Now new initiatives from a number of different social networks are making these platforms absolutely essential for retailers that want to drive sales and boost engagement.

In a new report from BI Intelligence we analyze social media's role in online retail — whether that's driving direct sales with the use of embedded "Buy" buttons on social media posts, or referring traffic to retailers' websites and apps. We measure the impact social media has on e-commerce by looking at metrics such as conversion rates, average order value, and revenue generated by shares, likes, and tweets. We also outline the latest commerce efforts by leading social networks. 

Here are some of the key points from the report: 

• Social is driving much bigger increases in retail traffic than any other online channel. Social media increased its share of e-commerce referrals nearly 200% between the first quarters of 2014 and 2015. 
• For retailers to maintain these social gains, they will need to pay special attention to mobile, where social engagement with retail content is still limited. Social media users are 35% less likely to share a brand's or retailer's social post on mobile than they are on desktop computers.
• Facebook continues to grow its lead as the dominant social commerce platform. Facebook accounts for 50% of total social referrals and 64% of total social revenue. The site's changing demographics could make older consumers a strong target for retailers leveraging the platform. 
• Pinterest is a major social commerce player despite a relatively small user base. The pinning platform drives 16% of social revenue despite an audience 6.5 times smaller than Twitter. New buy and action buttons on retailer posts should make Pinterest an even stronger referral and revenue engine for brands.
• Twitter is losing its influence for mass-market merchants, but it could still have a role to play among sporting and events marketers, especially for location-based promotions. Recently, NFL and NBA teams have used Twitter to sell game tickets and merchandise. 
• Instagram doesn't drive significant sales activity for retailers but high-end companies have been leveraging the platform for branding purposes. New Buy buttons on paid posts, as well as increased targeting capabilities, could make the app a more important direct-response driver.

In full, the report: 

• Sizes social media's role for retailers compared to other referral sources such as search and email. 
• Examines how social media's transition to mobile is impacting the role of different social platforms.
• Looks at how the different social networks stack up in terms of conversion rates, share of social-generated retail sales, and average order value. 
• Highlights up-and-coming social commerce players such as Snapchat and Instagram, and how brands are using them for influencer marketing. 
• Outlines the latest major commerce moves by Facebook and Twitter, which could help drive up conversion rates from social. 

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >>Learn More Now
2. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now

PS. Did you know...

Our BI Intelligence INSIDER Newsletters are currently read by thousands of business professionals first thing every morning. Fortune 1000 companies, startups, digital agencies, investment firms, and media conglomerates rely on these newsletters to keep atop the key trends shaping their digital landscape — whether it is mobile, digital media, e-commerce, payments, or the Internet of Things.

Our subscribers consider the INSIDER Newsletters a "daily must-read industry snapshot" and "the edge needed to succeed personally and professionally"— just to pick a few highlights from our recent customer survey.

With our full money-back guarantee, we make it easy to find out for yourself how valuable the daily insights are for your business and career.  Click this link to learn all about the INSIDER Newsletters today.

Join the conversation about this story »

Snapchat has proven itself a more versatile app than many once thought.

Although it is still predominantly associated with Millennials and celebs looking to broadcast their every move, an increasingly diverse number of people are being attracted to the app.

As detailed by its VP of content, it’s time for us to shed our preconceived notions about Snapchat, and the best way to do that is by following some of its weird and wonderful users.

Among the niches appearing on the app are a handful of plastic surgeons using it to attract future patients.

The idea behind their adoption of Snapchat, which forms part of a larger social media strategy, is that live videos of operations can help people shed their fears in regard to having work done. It goes without saying that the real-life broadcasts aren’t for the squeamish.

For Dr. Matthew Schulman, the approach seems to be working.

A board-certified plastic surgeon with his own practice in New York City, Schulman began using Snapchat about a year ago, reports Fox News.

Estimating his workload at around 35 to 40 surgeries per month, Schulman claims that around 90 per cent of his patients allow him to broadcast their operations on the multimedia-messaging app.

Stills from the procedures also make their way onto Schulman’s Instagram page, with notifications regarding the images tweeted out carrying the necessary “graphic material” warning.

How exactly does Schulman pull off his broadcasts when his job requires intense focus and, we’re guessing, both of his hands? Rather wisely, he lets a nurse or medical assistant take care of recordings from his Snapchat account, which can be followed under the handle, ‘nycplasticsurg,’ in case you’re thinking of tuning in.

“I think plastic surgeons are recognizing it’s an important social media platform, but I don’t think every plastic surgeon has the patience or the desire to do this because it does take some effort,” Schulman remarked. “I’m educational, but we’re not over the top.”

A number of Snapchat’s most famous users have reportedly gone under the knife, including Kylie Jenner. The 18-year-old model and social media influencer has come under fire in the past for allegedly inspiring young users of the app to follow in her footsteps and get work done.

Can the superficial side of social media also make stars of the plastic surgeons used by celebs? Schulman’s growing fan base, which totals thousands of users across several platforms, may just hold the answer.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Consumer Reports put Costco and Sam's Club head-to-head — here's the verdict

Social media may still only drive a small share of total online retail sales, but its impact is becoming impossible to ignore. Social-driven retail sales and referral traffic are rising at a faster pace than all other online channels. 

The top 500 retailers earned $3.3 billion from social shopping in 2014, up 26% from 2013, according to the Internet Retailer's Social Media 500. That is well ahead of the roughly 16% growth rate for the overall e-commerce market in the US. 

Now new initiatives from a number of different social networks are making these platforms absolutely essential for retailers that want to drive sales and boost engagement.

In a new report from BI Intelligence we analyze social media's role in online retail — whether that's driving direct sales with the use of embedded "Buy" buttons on social media posts, or referring traffic to retailers' websites and apps. We measure the impact social media has on e-commerce by looking at metrics such as conversion rates, average order value, and revenue generated by shares, likes, and tweets. We also outline the latest commerce efforts by leading social networks. 

Here are some of the key points from the report: 

• Social is driving much bigger increases in retail traffic than any other online channel. Social media increased its share of e-commerce referrals nearly 200% between the first quarters of 2014 and 2015. 
• For retailers to maintain these social gains, they will need to pay special attention to mobile, where social engagement with retail content is still limited. Social media users are 35% less likely to share a brand's or retailer's social post on mobile than they are on desktop computers.
• Facebook continues to grow its lead as the dominant social commerce platform. Facebook accounts for 50% of total social referrals and 64% of total social revenue. The site's changing demographics could make older consumers a strong target for retailers leveraging the platform. 
• Pinterest is a major social commerce player despite a relatively small user base. The pinning platform drives 16% of social revenue despite an audience 6.5 times smaller than Twitter. New buy and action buttons on retailer posts should make Pinterest an even stronger referral and revenue engine for brands.
• Twitter is losing its influence for mass-market merchants, but it could still have a role to play among sporting and events marketers, especially for location-based promotions. Recently, NFL and NBA teams have used Twitter to sell game tickets and merchandise. 
• Instagram doesn't drive significant sales activity for retailers but high-end companies have been leveraging the platform for branding purposes. New Buy buttons on paid posts, as well as increased targeting capabilities, could make the app a more important direct-response driver.

In full, the report: 

• Sizes social media's role for retailers compared to other referral sources such as search and email. 
• Examines how social media's transition to mobile is impacting the role of different social platforms.
• Looks at how the different social networks stack up in terms of conversion rates, share of social-generated retail sales, and average order value. 
• Highlights up-and-coming social commerce players such as Snapchat and Instagram, and how brands are using them for influencer marketing. 
• Outlines the latest major commerce moves by Facebook and Twitter, which could help drive up conversion rates from social. 

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >>Learn More Now
2. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now

PS. Did you know...

Our BI Intelligence INSIDER Newsletters are currently read by thousands of business professionals first thing every morning. Fortune 1000 companies, startups, digital agencies, investment firms, and media conglomerates rely on these newsletters to keep atop the key trends shaping their digital landscape — whether it is mobile, digital media, e-commerce, payments, or the Internet of Things.

Our subscribers consider the INSIDER Newsletters a "daily must-read industry snapshot" and "the edge needed to succeed personally and professionally"— just to pick a few highlights from our recent customer survey.

With our full money-back guarantee, we make it easy to find out for yourself how valuable the daily insights are for your business and career.  Click this link to learn all about the INSIDER Newsletters today.

Join the conversation about this story »

Sometimes it's a rainy Sunday or even a perfectly sunny Saturday and all you want to do is sit on the couch and have 24/7 animal content in your face.

Snapchat is perfect for those small doses of cuteness.

Scroll down for our list of Snapchat accounts sure to cheer you up with adorable animal shots!

@Jiffpom is an adorable Pomeranian dog that you can count on to wear cute outfits every now and then.

While we're on the topic of dogs, @marniethedog is an excellent choice for some seriously goofy dog photos. Just look at that tongue!

Or follow @toastmeetsworld, the adorable King Charles puppymill rescue with no teeth, a hanging tongue, and some stylish sunglasses.

Users around the world are logging in to messaging apps to not only chat with friends but also to connect with brands, browse merchandise, and watch content. What were once simple services for exchanging messages, pictures, videos, and GIFs have evolved into expansive ecosystems with their own developers, apps, and APIs.

Chat apps boast a number of distinct characteristics that make their audiences particularly appealing to businesses and marketers, including their size, retention and usage rates, and user demographics. The combined user base of the top four chat apps is larger than the combined user base of the top four social networks. Chat apps also have higher retention and usage rates than most mobile apps. Finally, the majority of their users are young, an extremely important demographic for brands, advertisers and publishers.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we take a close look at the size of the messaging app market, how these apps are changing, and the types of opportunities for monetization that have emerged from the growing audience that uses messaging services daily.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Mobile messaging apps are massive. The largest services have hundreds of millions of monthly active users (MAU). Falling data prices, cheaper devices, and improved features are helping propel their growth.
• Messaging apps are about more than messaging. The first stage of the chat app revolution was focused on growth. In the next phase, companies will focus on building out services and monetizing chat apps’ massive user base.
• Popular Asian messaging apps like WeChat, KakaoTalk, and LINE have taken the lead in finding innovative ways to keep users engaged. They’ve also built successful strategies for monetizing their services.
• Media companies, and marketers are still investing more time and resources into social networks like Facebook and Twitter than they are into messaging services. That will change as messaging companies build out their services and provide more avenues for connecting brands, publishers, and advertisers with users.

In full, this report:

• Gives a high-level overview of the messaging market in the US by comparing total monthly active users for the top chat apps.
• Examines the user behavior of chat app users, specifically what makes them so attractive to brands, publishers, and advertisers.
• Identifies what distinguishes chat apps in the West from their counterparts in the East.
• Discusses the potentially lucrative avenues companies are pursuing to monetize their services.
• Offers key insights and implications for marketers as they consider interacting with users through these new platforms.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >>Learn More Now
2. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now

PS. Did you know...

Our BI Intelligence INSIDER Newsletters are currently read by thousands of business professionals first thing every morning. Fortune 1000 companies, startups, digital agencies, investment firms, and media conglomerates rely on these newsletters to keep atop the key trends shaping their digital landscape — whether it is mobile, digital media, e-commerce, payments, or the Internet of Things.

Our subscribers consider the INSIDER Newsletters a "daily must-read industry snapshot" and "the edge needed to succeed personally and professionally"— just to pick a few highlights from our recent customer survey.

With our full money-back guarantee, we make it easy to find out for yourself how valuable the daily insights are for your business and career.  Click this link to learn all about the INSIDER Newsletters today.

Join the conversation about this story »

You may mainly think of Snapchat as a way to send goofy selfies to friends, but the social network is increasingly being used as a more creative medium for aspiring filmmakers.

If you open Snapchat on Saturday April 23 and check out the Discover section of the app, you'll see a new channel showcasing the 10 best Snapchat stories in the US.

The short films were submitted through a Snapchat-sponsored competition with the Tribeca Film Festival, and the winners were chosen by celebrity judges that included Jessica Alba, Steve Aoki, Steve Buscemi, and yes, DJ Khaled. The rules of the competition were that all stories had to be shot exclusively in Snapchat and last no longer than a couple of minutes.

Tech Insider caught up with two winners of the competition — which, for Snapchat, is the first of its kind — at a flashy premiere party during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

High schoolers Kat Vlasova and Brandon Miller spent six hours making a Snapchat story called "Pencils" with the hopes of getting flown out for the festival.

“I was in the middle of doing homework and I thought, ‘I’ll procrastinate to come up with an idea,’" said Vlasova, a senior theater student who downloaded Snapchat last year. "And then I thought, ‘Why don’t I use the idea of procrastinating on homework and getting distracted?’”

Their two-minute story begins with Vlasova studying calculus. She loses her pencil and dramatically chases a thief, played by Miller, into space and underwater to get it back.

Miller, a junior who also posts regularly to YouTube, said it took the duo six hours to shoot the 2-minute story after completing the storyboarding process.“Being here is definitely, definitely worth it," he said.

Vlasova and Miller's short is displayed front and center for 24 hours in the Discover section of Snapchat with the nine other winners. That means millions of other Snapchat users will see their work. 

And, like everything else on Snapchat, their story will be gone in 24 hours.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: These kids from Madagascar had an amazing reaction to using Snapchat for the first time

Facebook is developing a standalone camera app to encourage users to take and share more photos and videos, sources tell The Wall Street Journal's Deepa Seetharaman.

The app is still in early prototype stage, but as of now it opens to a camera and has a designated livestreaming feature (which would make sense, as Facebook has put a huge focus on its broadcast capabilities as of late). 

The app would counteract Facebook's decline in "original broadcast sharing"— the amount of personal updates and photos people post, like baby pictures and new job announcements  — which dropped 21% year-over-year in mid-2015, according to The Information's Amir Efrati.

Facebook reportedly has a team in London dedicated to working on this sharing problem, which has tried things like tweaking the News Feed algorithm to feature more original posts and putting more of an emphasis on holiday reminders and things like its On This Day feature. This new app is reportedly being developed by that same team. 

Facebook already has a separate photo sharing app called Moments, which lets groups share photos, but this new effort sounds closer to rival app Snapchat, which lets users send photos and videos back and forth as well as to the public with its Story feature. 

It also sounds similar to something Facebook has tried in the past. 

In 2014, the social network released a Snapchat-like app called Slingshot. The whole idea of Slingshot was to encourage users to create more photos —when the app first launched, users couldn't even view another person's picture message unless they created their own.  The app failed to take off, Facebook pulled the plug on it by the end of the year. 

Facebook declined to comment. 

SEE ALSO: Things are heating up between Facebook and Snapchat

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Uber is making customers pay for having drivers wait

Facebook has been pushing its video products hard over the last few months, and this chart has a good explanation why.

In a note on Snapchat on Monday, SunTrust analyst Robert Peck compared the two platforms' video ambitions.

Snapchat quadrupled its daily video views from 2 billion to 8 billion in just nine months, from May 2015 to February 2016.

That means that it's growing a lot faster than Facebook.

As seen below, in April 2015 Facebook reported 4 billion views per day. Snapchat at the time had only half of that.

Now, in less than a year, Snapchat has already caught up to Facebook.

This positions Facebook not in a fight for content, but for attention, argues Peck.

Many of the content creators, like brands or celebrities, will probably start producing content for both. After all, Facebook still has way more daily users than Snapchat — Facebook reported 1.04 billion daily average users (DAUs) in its Q1 2016 earnings report, and Peck estimates that Snapchat is around 150 million, up from 100 million last May.

Instead, the fight will be to become the top destination for people to consume video, and Snapchat is clearly gaining ground quickly.

SEE ALSO: 23 things you had no idea you could do in Snapchat

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: These kids from Madagascar had an amazing reaction to using Snapchat for the first time

Plenty of accidents have been caused by texting and driving, but a newer form of reckless driving has emerged: Snapchatting behind the wheel.

A lawsuit blames Snapchat for creating a filter that prompted a woman named Christal McGee to drive her Mercedes Benz above the speed limit and crash into Wentworth Maynard's merging vehicle on a Georgia highway. McGee made impact with Maynard while going 107 miles per hour, according to the court filing.

Maynard's lawyers said "McGee intended to post information about how fast she was driving on Snapchat" through one of the app's filters, which lets you overlay the speed you're moving in miles per hour over a photo or video. It looks like this:

"Snapchat's speed filter facilitated McGee's excessive speeding," Maynard's lawyers wrote. "McGee was motivated to drive at an excessive speed in order to obtain recognition through Snapchat by means of a Snapchat 'trophy.'" The trophy section of Snapchat features unlockable emoji trophies users are awarded for doing certain things with the app, although Snapchat has never offered a trophy for using the speed filter specifically.

The suit also cites a July 2015 incident in which a Brazilian woman used Snapchat while in a speeding vehicle that was wrecked and overturned.

Maynard's lawyers are suing both Snapchat and McGee to pay for medical bills related to Maynard's injuries from the accident, which include "permanent brain damage." McGee, who was also injured, posted a selfie to Snapchat after the accident while strapped to a gurney in an ambulance with blood on her face. Her caption read, "Lucky to be alive."

Snapchat declined to comment on the pending lawsuit. The company warns new users not to use the app while driving.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: These kids from Madagascar had an amazing reaction to using Snapchat for the first time

A legal battle is raging in the US about whether you should be able to take a selfie at the voting booth this November.

Snapchat, the social network that's synonymous with selfies, is fighting a recent ban of ballot selfies in New Hampshire. The California-based startup filed its first amicus court brief last week in which it argues that sharing selfies while voting is protected under the First Amendment.

"Ballot selfies are the latest in a long historical tradition of voters sharing their civic enthusiasm—and their votes—with their social networks," Snapchat's lawyers argued.

On a state-by-state basis, the legal repercussions of taking photos at the voting booth are quite varied. The Huffington Post compiled each state's stance, and found a wide range of rules and repercussions.

Snapchat's home state of California, for instance, says that taking photos while voting is prohibited, but doesn't mention any kind of punishment for doing so. Vermont, on the other hand, can fine you $1,000 if you allow your ballot "to be seen by another person with an apparent intention of letting it be known how he or she is about to vote.”

States that oppose photography at the ballot box do so to protect the secrecy of the decision. The main argument is that sharing one's vote could lead to voting fraud or manipulation. “Whether an exchange of money, or for having to live with someone or some other fear, you don’t want anyone to go into that booth and end up voting for someone they didn’t really want to vote for, but felt they didn’t want to pay that price for whatever reason," New Hampshire secretary of state Bill Gardner told The New York Times.

Besides the fact that Snapchat wants people sharing as much as possible in its app, the company has a special interest in covering politics. Snapchat has a small team of journalists led by former CNN correspondent Peter Hamby who assist in making crowd-sourced "live stories" in the app around debates, election primaries, and so on. Hamby also hosts a Snapchat-produced politics show for the 2016 election exclusively in the app.

The New Hampshire court battle is, of course, specific to New Hampshire — the idea behind fighting it there is, if Snapchat wins, it could set a legal precedent nationwide.

"Given Snapchat’s largely user-generated approach to news coverage, the company has a unique concern about laws that purport to block regular people from capturing and sharing content that comments on issues of the day," its amicus brief reads. "Such laws impose real restrictions on expression and newsgathering as they have evolved in the 21st century."

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People are spending nearly an hour every day scrolling through Facebook status updates, liking Instagram posts, or chatting on Messenger. 

Globally, people spend more than 50 minutes a day across Facebook's suite of apps (not including WhatsApp), the company announced during its blockbuster Q1 earnings. 

It's hard to pinpoint exactly how much that number has swelled over the years.

The last time Facebook updated us on time-spent stats was July 2014, when it said that people in the US spent over 40 minutes on the main social network every day.

In July 2015, analysts at Needham estimated that global users spent an average of 20+ minutes just on Facebook every day.

This new stat is global and across Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook. 

Facebook also said that its number of ad impressions increased 50% this quarter, and that its average price per ad increased 5%. 

To compare Facebook to another app that seems to suck up attention, Snapchat recently said that its worldwide daily active users spent between 25 and 30 minutes a day on the app. 

SEE ALSO: Facebook crushes expectations, stock soars

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Here's a big number for you: 10 billion.

That's how many videos are viewed on Snapchat every day, as first reported by Bloomberg on Thursday. Snapchat confirmed the number to Tech Insider. That's up from 8 billion videos viewed per day just two months ago. 

What's perhaps most impressive about Snapchat is that over a third of its more than 100 million daily active users create "stories" in the app, which are stitched together collections of photos and videos others can view. All of these stories expire 24 hours after they're created.

Meanwhile, multiple outlets have reported that Facebook is battling a decline in "original sharing." Facebook doesn't reveal the mix of content that people share on its social network, but the reports say that sharing from personal accounts — think: status updates, photos, notes, etc. — is down.

Let me be clear: Facebook is going to be completely fine.

It added 60 million new people to its service (over half of Snapchat's entire user base) just last quarter, and has 1.65 billion people using it at least once a month. Facebook is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, has ambitions to become an internet provider, currently possesses an all-star bench of employee talent, and just hired the former head of DARPA.

But make no mistake, Snapchat is Facebook's biggest threat right now. Here's why:

• Snapchat is growing rapidly and attracting a more diverse user base. In just under a year, Snapchat's video views have soared from 2 billion to 10 billion per day. At this time last year Facebook was averaging 4 billion views per day and last reported 8 billion views per day in November (We've asked Facebook for more recent numbers). Both social networks are growing, but Snapchat has caught up fast. Besides views, Snapchat's user base is diversifying. Its vice president of content, Nick Bell, recently dispelled the misconception that the app is used by only young teens — 50% of new users are over 25-years-old.
• Snapchat has two inherent qualities Facebook desperately wants: it's fun to use and sparks creativity. Even if you don't use Snapchat, you've probably seen the rainbow vomit selfies and ridiculous filters if offers. Facebook wants to be a tool for creative expressionlike Snapchat. It's attempted to make a disappearing photo sharing app like Snapchat multiple times to no avail. It's reportedly working on another one right now. Shortly after Snapchat bought an app that made goofy 3D selfie lenses (which now powers the feature in Snapchat), Facebook bought a nearly identical app called MSQRD. 
• People are spending a lot of time in Snapchat every day, which cuts into the time they could be spending on Facebook. Snapchat users spend on average 25-30 minutes in the app every day. That's not as high as the more than 50 minutes people spend across Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, but it's meaningful. There's a finite amount of time in a given day, and the more time people spend in Snapchat, the less time they have to spend on Facebook.

Snapchat's meteoric rise cuts to the heart of what Facebook cares about most: sharing.

Facebook became the behemoth it is today because we willingly shared our interests, opinions, and lives with it every day. People may use Facebook more than ever to read the news, plan events, and watch video, but Snapchat capitalizes on the creative, expressive feeling Facebook lacks.

Back in 2013, Mark Zuckerberg tried to buy Snapchat for around $3 billion in cash. Snapchat didn't sell, and that's got to sting for Zuckerberg every time Snapchat moves ahead of Facebook on the App Store's charts.

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WOW Air is looking to hire four people who will get to travel around the world for free and Snapchat their experiences this summer.

The Icelandic budget airline will pay for its selected “SnapTravelers” to visit four of its 28 destinations— which include Barcelona, Copenhagen, Warsaw, San Francisco, and more — over three months, from June to August.

Flights, hotels, and activities will all be covered by WOW Air, Travel + Leisure reports.

“SnapTravelers” will also get a travel allowance to spend on their trips, each of which will last between three to eight days and include at least two Snapchat-worthy activities, according to the terms and conditions on WOW Air's website. Business Insider has contacted the airline to find out how much it will allocate to travellers’ allowances.

“SnapTavelers will also gain social media exposure and hopefully some priceless memories,” the announcement on WOW Air's website reads.

Snapchatters are encouraged to help plan their trips and suggest activities, though ultimately the airline will decide what they do.

Eligible applicants must be aged 18 or over, able to speak English well, and in good physical and mental health.

To apply, you’ll need to create a two-minute Snapchat story, save the story to your phone, and submit it to the application page on WOW Air’s website by May 8, along with your personal details, including your email address, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat handles.

WOW Air will announce the winning Snapchatters over its social media accounts on May 17.

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Presidential candidates have historically run TV attack ads against each other. Hillary Clinton may have just done the first attack ad on Snapchat. And it's all about Donald Trump.

The story was posted to Clinton's official Snapchat account on Thursday and uses the app's face-swapping feature to place the faces of former presidents over Trump's face.

Clinton's Snapchat story starts by acknowledging that Trump has a good chance of winning the GOP nomination for president.

It then references Trump's recent comment about being "so presidential" one day.

Trump recently told the "Today" show that he will tone down his personality once he makes it to the White House. "I will be so presidential, you will be so bored," he said. "You'll say, 'Can't he have a little more energy?'"

Clinton's Snapchat story then proceeds to look back at some of Trump's "offensive/dangerous words."

Who needs Tinder when you have Snapchat?

A social media phenomenon broke out on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus last week as two lovebirds used Snapchat's location-based story feature to make a connection.

It started when one woman posted that she spotted a man wearing a Vikings jersey on the university's Snapchat story and said she was "so in love" with him.

The Vikings jersey guy responded, and the two eventually used Snapchat's story feature to meet up at a local bar.

Meanwhile, other students chimed in throughout the day, hoping the two would actually meet.

But the real story here is the unique nature of Snapchat's location-based stories. Anyone can submit a video or photo that other users in the area can watch. Snapchat has human curators that watch the submissions and pulls them together into a common narrative.

In this case, Snapchat went above and beyond and created a special filter that read "HELP VIKINGS FAN FIND MYSTERY GIRL" students could use to join in the fun.

You can't get that on any other social network. No wonder why so many people are obsessed with Snapchat.

Watch the video, which was edited by Linh Nguyen of The Tab and spotted by Digg, to see how it all went down:

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Social media may still only drive a small share of total online retail sales, but its impact is becoming impossible to ignore. Social-driven retail sales and referral traffic are rising at a faster pace than all other online channels. 

The top 500 retailers earned $3.3 billion from social shopping in 2014, up 26% from 2013, according to the Internet Retailer's Social Media 500. That is well ahead of the roughly 16% growth rate for the overall e-commerce market in the US. 

Now new initiatives from a number of different social networks are making these platforms absolutely essential for retailers that want to drive sales and boost engagement.

In a new report from BI Intelligence we analyze social media's role in online retail — whether that's driving direct sales with the use of embedded "Buy" buttons on social media posts, or referring traffic to retailers' websites and apps. We measure the impact social media has on e-commerce by looking at metrics such as conversion rates, average order value, and revenue generated by shares, likes, and tweets. We also outline the latest commerce efforts by leading social networks. 

Here are some of the key points from the report: 

• Social is driving much bigger increases in retail traffic than any other online channel. Social media increased its share of e-commerce referrals nearly 200% between the first quarters of 2014 and 2015. 
• For retailers to maintain these social gains, they will need to pay special attention to mobile, where social engagement with retail content is still limited. Social media users are 35% less likely to share a brand's or retailer's social post on mobile than they are on desktop computers.
• Facebook continues to grow its lead as the dominant social commerce platform. Facebook accounts for 50% of total social referrals and 64% of total social revenue. The site's changing demographics could make older consumers a strong target for retailers leveraging the platform. 
• Pinterest is a major social commerce player despite a relatively small user base. The pinning platform drives 16% of social revenue despite an audience 6.5 times smaller than Twitter. New buy and action buttons on retailer posts should make Pinterest an even stronger referral and revenue engine for brands.
• Twitter is losing its influence for mass-market merchants, but it could still have a role to play among sporting and events marketers, especially for location-based promotions. Recently, NFL and NBA teams have used Twitter to sell game tickets and merchandise. 
• Instagram doesn't drive significant sales activity for retailers but high-end companies have been leveraging the platform for branding purposes. New Buy buttons on paid posts, as well as increased targeting capabilities, could make the app a more important direct-response driver.

In full, the report: 

• Sizes social media's role for retailers compared to other referral sources such as search and email. 
• Examines how social media's transition to mobile is impacting the role of different social platforms.
• Looks at how the different social networks stack up in terms of conversion rates, share of social-generated retail sales, and average order value. 
• Highlights up-and-coming social commerce players such as Snapchat and Instagram, and how brands are using them for influencer marketing. 
• Outlines the latest major commerce moves by Facebook and Twitter, which could help drive up conversion rates from social. 

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >>Learn More Now
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