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Snapchat's next Story is a live feed of college life

Snapchat's next Story is a live feed of college life

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Snapchat's popular Our Story feature has been used to capture live events around the world — everything from the World Cup to the Electric Daisy Carnival. Now, Snapchat's bringing Our Story to college campuses.

Launching today at UCLA, USC, Penn State, and UT Austin, "Our Campus Story" lets students post snaps of what's happening around town to one communal Story. But there's one key difference between Campus Story and the company's previous series of Stories: only users present on campus can post and watch. But don't expect a stream of kegstands and scantily clad students. Snapchat plans to moderate each and every Campus Story, as it has done with past live Stories, only approving appropriate snaps for distribution.

But don't expect a stream of kegstands

What began as a fun experiment has grown into quite the staple for Snapchat. In June, the company announced that Story views surpassed snap views on a monthly basis. Just a few months later, several prominent internet stars have already made their moves to the platform, posting Stories of their own that users can follow. Some users, like entertainer Jerome Jarre, receive tens of thousands of Story views in a matter of minutes. While we don't have much data on the success of live Stories, I'd bet they've been successful. Snapchat has continued aggressively pursuing the new medium, after all, which blends the timeliness of Twitter with the immediacy and authenticity of Snapchat photos and videos.

If the company can turn live Stories into an entertainment destination, we might soon see ads show up between every few snaps. Advertisers are desperate to reach the app's disproportionately young audience who check the app 14 times per day, on average. Or, Our Story may evolve into something entirely different. Snapchat has built a platform for citizen journalism as much as it's built a platform for watching clips of music festivals, though CEO Evan Spiegel is hesitant to let the platform breathe in situations like the Hong Kong riots. At least for now, Our Campus Story's inclusive nature seems to keep the focus on community and what's happening nearby.

Years ago, Facebook supercharged its viral momentum by leveraging the inherently social lives of college students. With Our Campus Story, Spiegel might be hoping to utilize the same strategy. College is indeed when you make many habits for the rest of your life. Spiegel seems to be hoping that Snapchat will be one of them.