Snapchat is an interesting thing. What began as a not-so-subtle way to share nude photographs with confidence has now evolved into one of the preeminent social media platforms. Through a curated list of carefully planned innovations, the young company has continuously evolved to provide more value to its users. Snapchat has become more about chronicling each and every moment of your life for your friends and followers and less about hiding certain images from the cloud. Today, that overall innovative direction is being pushed even further by a leaked video demonstrating Snapchat’s newest product: Spectacles.
There has been a longstanding rumor that Snapchat has been working on some sort of glasses-based product to expand its brand into the hardware marketplace. The full footage makes the value proposition of these glasses. The glasses, which may be called Spectacles, according to Business Insider, give the followers of your Snap story the chance to see it from your perspective.
According to the original report, Business Insider was sent a video showing Spectacles in action. Snapchat filed a copyright claim and had the video removed, but not before the outlet captured the footage “for reporting purposes” (which are not restrained by typical copyright laws).
Another wrinkle to this story is the name of the product itself. Spectacle may be a highly appropriate name for a set of eyewear designed to have “Spectacular” functionality. However, Snapchat may not have been the first company to think so.
Josh Farkas, the founder of a VR startup known as Cubicle Ninjas built the app Spectacle VR and posted the following tweet in August:
We received an offer we can’t refuse to buy @SpectacleVR name. App will be reborn. New name, more features.
— Josh Farkas (@JoshuaFarkas) August 10, 2016
He followed up that message yesterday by saying:
Our Gear VR app Spectacle is now called Filter! Available now for $1!https://t.co/8D0Y0NNIGu https://t.co/4smAzJC6hQ
— Josh Farkas (@JoshuaFarkas) September 22, 2016
Filter (formerly Spectacle) is a GearVR application that uses the headset’s front facing camera to overlay real-time Instagram-like filters onto the real world. The leak to Business Insider of “Snapchat Spectacles” happened within a day of Cubicle Ninjas officially changing its Gear VR augmented reality app’s name from Spectacle to Filter. Upload reached out to Farkas but he declined to say how much was paid for the name or who made the offer.
Snapchat may be planning a New York debut for Spectacle(s). A Twitter user posted the sudden appearance of the following sign:
5 days later, it changed. pic.twitter.com/4l6p5kLUMK
— Zach Kahn ? (@zkahn94) September 23, 2016
We will be posting more information as it arises.
Featured image credit: Business Insider
