Snapchat Inc. is adding executives and new features, as it steps up efforts to build the company. Pending an update from the app store, users will soon be able to message friends and video chat in real-time.
"Until today, we felt that Snapchat was missing an important part of the conversation: presence. There's nothing like knowing you have the full attention of your friend while you're chatting," the company said in a blog post.
In an interview with the New York Times, Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel explained that the changes are intended to deepen the interactions between users. "Messaging apps are focused on the number of types of content that you can send," he said. "We are focused on what you are sending and how. ... This is really what we think mobile conversations should be."
Snapchat, born in 2011 in a fraternity house, provides tools that let users easily draw on photos, to put a mustache on a selfie, for example. The images are deleted seconds after they are accessed.
