Finally seeking to make money, Snapchat released its first ad – the Ouija movie trailer.
The California-based tech company has launched its first advertisement on the ephemeral chat service. The ad was hosted on Saturday, October 18, 2014 under the “Recent Updates” section of the service. The ad was a 20-second trailer of the movie “Ouija”. Snapchat Inc. had announced on Friday that they would begin showing their users in the US their first advertisements.
In a blog post, Snapchat said, “It’s the first time we’ve done anything like this because it’s the first time we’ve been paid to put content in that space. It’s going to feel a little weird at first, but we’re taking the plunge.”
The “Recent Updates” section of Snapchat is used to share ’24-hour’ stories with friends. This will be the section where Snapchat will place all its ads. The ads will disappear once watched or after 24 hours. User will not have the option to block the ads off. The company also stated that they were trying their best to not be intrusive with the ads.
With this phase, the company has taken the plunge into the commercial space for the first time. Till now, Snapchat was funded privately and was being run by investments. Earlier this month, the company was reportedly valued at $10 billion.
At the moment, Snapchat is following in the footsteps of old startups like Facebook, Twitter that began as an ad-free service, but eventually required ads to keep up with the competition.
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