Because Snapchat’s chief function is private messaging, it’s never really given users easy ways to search the app to find content to watch and people to follow. They’ve added a few features — universal search, this hack that helps you find official stories and celebrity accounts — but it’s still not the most convenient or intuitive app on the block. Today, the company announced another search function to help alleviate some of those issues. Now, users can search the app for keywords — think your favorite basketball team or “Spring Break” or “puppies” — to find stories featuring their chosen topic.
“We’ve built a new way to understand what’s happening in Snaps that are submitted to Our Story, and to create new Stories using advanced machine learning,” Snapchat explained on its blog. “You can search over one million unique Stories on Snapchat.”
To be clear, the stories you’ll be finding are composed of snaps submitted by Snapchat users to the public Our Story; you won’t be able to find personal stories from private users. (The reverse here means people won’t be able to find your drunken Saturday-night story — which you’ll 100 percent delete once you see it in the sober light of day — either.) Snapchat will be using a number of markers — including caption text, time of day, and the images in the snaps — to determine which story, if any, it fits. The feature is currently available in select U.S. cities. Here’s hoping the next search option the company introduces gives us a way to search for users to follow. Until then, enjoy the puppies I guess.
