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Snapchat will let you buy temporary, on-demand geofilters for your next party

Snapchat will let you buy temporary, on-demand geofilters for your next party

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Snapchat users feeling limited by the app’s geofilter overlays can now make their own and define areas in which they’ll show up. Users can choose spaces that are a minimum of 20,000 square feet — about the size of an office — to a maximum of 5,000,000 square feet — roughly a few city blocks. The custom filters can stay live from an hour to thirty days, and Snapchat imagines they'll be used during weddings and other events.

The filters start at $5, which is the approximate price for an eight-hour Friday event in a major city, but this money only places the filter on the app; Snapchat isn’t offering to design the images. Prices change depending on the time and amount of space the filter covers. The customization provides another way for Snapchat to monetize, following the closure of its lens store earlier this year. Although it lost that profit, it does still monetize through its sponsored lenses and filters. The sponsored lenses — video filters that go over selfies — can sell for between $450,000 and $750,000 per day. The first branded geofilter debuted this past summer and was for McDonald's. Snapchat hasn't said how much it charges it for those sponsorships, although it does charge advertisers $20 for every 1,000 video ad views.

the customization provides another way for Snapchat to monetize

Users can design their filter and submit it through Snapchat’s new online portal. Once the image is uploaded, submitters can define the areas where users will get the option to use the filter, and then they can choose the time and dates they want it to be available. Once all that information is submitted, Snapchat hopes to approve everything within one business day. The company didn’t specify what criteria the filter needs to meet for approval, although it did let a sponsored geofilter criticizing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton go live earlier this past year, so the bar might not be too high. The custom filter will ultimately show up alongside the go-to neighborhood ones and the day’s sponsored brand filters.

The on-demand filters are currently available in the US, UK, and Canada. Judging by the company’s YouTube video and blog post, it’s thinking the filters will be used for all big life events, and with an affordable $5 entry point, that could happen. That said, the app might end up inundated with filters, especially in dense cities like New York.


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