(2020-06-12) Snapchat Debuts Minis Bite-sized Third-party Apps That Live Inside Chat

Snapchat debuts Minis, bite-sized third-party apps that live inside chat. At Snap’s Partner Summit, the company shared its newest effort to entice third-party devs to Snapchat. It’s called Minis.

ordering movie tickets, comparing class schedules, studying a flashcard deck or going through a guided meditation.

Like Snap Games, Snapchat’s mini programs are built on HTML5 and can be quickly called up without users waiting for a download to finish.

At launch, Snapchat has a fairly limited set of partners including the meditation app Headspace, the movie ticketing app Atom Tickets and the music festival Coachella.

WeChat, the messaging app at the heart of Chinese consumer tech, relies heavily on the small integrations. The question will be whether the feature can take off stateside where many of the big tech platforms have been trending towards restricting third party access and integrations, fearing privacy mishaps.

The closest comparison to the rollout of Minis might be Facebook’s repeated, ill-fated flirtations with chatbots over the years

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