Fresh from rumours that it is raising fresh funding valuing the company at $19bn, Snapchat has launched a new feature that makes it easier for users to add music to the videos they share using its app.
Snapchat can now take a live feed of whatever music or audio is currently playing on a user’s smartphone when they record a video, and use it as the soundtrack when they send the clip to friends or upload it to their “Stories” profile.
The feature works with music apps including iTunes, Spotify and SoundCloud, and looks set to spark a new wave of “lip-dub” videos from Snapchat’s 100 million active users.
That’s likely to be a headache for single-use apps like Dubsmash, which has been very popular with teenagers in recent months with its focus on lip-synching to music clips and film quotes.
Another startup affected by the change is Mindie, an app that adds music to people’s video clips then share them through various social apps. Snapchat was one of them, but recently blocked Mindie from its API.
The new feature is Snapchat’s latest experiment with music. Major label Warner Music Group is one of the launch partners for its new Snapchat Discover section, while Madonna recently debuted her new music video within the app.
Snapchat has also promoted new artists like Goldroom, Guards and Smallpools when launching new features, experimenting with a “tap to buy” feature for the latter to send fans to their iTunes page.
In December 2014, leaked emails from the Sony Pictures hack suggested that Snapchat chief executive Evan Spiegel had even greater ambitions in the digital music world, potentially even launching a Snapchat record label to promote more artists.
For now, it will be Snapchat’s users promoting artists by including clips in their shared videos. What labels and music publishers make of the new feature remains to be seen, though.
When rightsholders were striking licensing deals with companies like Spotify, there were unsurprisingly no provisions covering use of those streams to soundtrack videos shared through social messaging apps.
