Surprise! Snapchat’s not evil, and is actually pretty cool now.

I confess, I started off thinking Snapchat was evil and would only be used for sending inappropriate photos because of the nature of the platform. It turns out it’s actually not evil, and now that they added the new Memories feature, it’s pretty useful.

I started using Snapchat about two months ago. At first, it was to consume news on there. Surprisingly the news channels on Snapchat are pretty engaging and are very different from other platforms, which I like. Then I started following some friends on Snapchat and started to see the power of the My Story feature. This feature allows you to post a series of photos and videos that people can see sequentially. Each photo or video only remains in your story for 24 hours, so there is no pressure to make anything pretty, it’s just a simple way to tell a narrative. This results in snaps of people’s lives that are more “behind the scenes” and a lot less refined than what you might find on Instagram or Facebook.

While I found this idea of the My Story section interesting, I still didn’t start using the platform because it was exclusively temporary content. I love that the temporary nature of the content lent itself to encouraging authenticity, but what if I wanted to keep some of the photos or videos for the future? Enter Snap’s new feature Memories. With the Memories feature, I can save those snaps for later!

So what does this mean for you? It means that Snapchat just got a lot more usable and interesting. It means the platform will likely continue to skyrocket and will likely become a major player in the social media space. So, like it or not, Snapchat is making its way into our lives and is surprisingly useful and fun. I am embracing it and think you should too.

For more about the new Memories feature from Snapchat, check out my friend Drew Hawkin’s post on it.

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