geofilter
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Google and Snapchat team up on geofilter coding contest for teens
Snapchat is teaming up with Google's Made With Code initiative to try and encourage teenagers to get into computer science. Teens aged 13 - 18 can build a Snapchat geofilter with Google's Blockly coding system for kids, then submit it to win a trip to the TEDWomen conference in New Orleans and mentoring sessions from Google and Snapchat engineers to create a Lens, an augmented reality filter for your photos. The five finalists' Lenses will be judged at the conference for a chance to go live in the Snapchat app, along with a trip to Los Angeles for a private tour of the Snap, Inc. and Google offices.
UK turns to Snapchat to boost young voter turnout
The Electoral Commission has partnered with Snapchat to launch a UK-wide geofilter encouraging selfie-swappers to register to vote in the upcoming general election. It's live in the app right now and asks users to "Find your voice!" ahead of the May 22nd registration deadline and actual vote on June 8th. This nationwide geofilter follows a more localised campaign in Scotland last month, which was intended to get youngsters hyped for council elections -- 16 and 17 years old particularly, given it was the first vote they were eligible to participate in.
Snap buys key patent to secure the future of its geofilters
Mobli, an Israeli company, patented the idea of adding filters to photos based on your location back in 2012, way before Snap started using them. Now TechCrunch says the ephemeral messaging app has purchased that patent for $7.7 million in order to make sure it won't ever have an issue offering geofilters to its users. They're some of its most popular offerings, after all, and were apparently responsible for $360 million of the $400 million revenue it posted last year. We're guessing $7.7 million was a small investment to make to secure the future of the company.
Snapchat wants its users to pay to make their own geofilters
Snapchat's various location-based filters have turned into one of the service's defining features. It started out as a way to add flair to your photos and videos in specific locations Snapchat deemed worthy, but the company opened up community submissions so that any neighborhood or area, no matter how small, could be represented. Today, Snapchat's expanding its geofilter submission program in an attempt to make some revenue: you can now pay to create a custom, temporary geofilter for an event. And for the first time, brands and businesses can submit a geofilter that features their logos.
