Snap held its annual Lens Fest event on December 6, where it dropped some news and fresh insights into its latest AR advances and how it plans to align with the next big shift. It’s a ‘Fest’ after all, so no culminating event would be complete without some industry notes and usage stats, which Snap generously provided, of course. You can tune in to your favorite Lens Fest on-demand sessions here, but more importantly, what we’ll be looking at are the juicy details. Put your glasses on, it’s going to be a beaut-eye-ful ride through Snap’s meadow of flagged AR updates.

Lens All You Can

First, Snap notes that AR shopping is on the rise, with more than 250 million Snapchatters engaging with AR shopping Lenses since January 2021. Commerce is one of the key opportunity areas for Snap, with which the platform is looking to merge as people consume more digital goods. Bitmoji fashion anyone? 

This forms another element – Snap also announced a new AR experiment that will see a small group of creators and developers working on new Lenses that will include add-on elements such as alternative presentation formats and digital enhancements. Creator of the ‘Potato’ Lens, Phillip Walton, says that users have been asking if there was a way to enhance the Lens through alternative variants. Now, there just might be, but that’s something we’ll refer you to in another piece. 

Snapchat also reported that its broader AR ecosystem is also expanding, with more than 300000 AR creators and developers participating and contributing more than 3 million AR Lenses via its creation tools. Snap says that this ‘expansion’ is now facilitating new business opportunities – Snap reports that LA-based AR Studio Paper Triangles generated close to $4 million in 2021 by building Lenses for brands like Crocs and Sephora. 

Snap expects this to be a growing trend as big brands now look to hire AR talent, especially as Meta looks to usher in the Metaverse, where digital environments take on a life of their own, impacting how we approach our online transactions and even some of our real-life behaviors. AR tools are another step in this direction, while the development of AR glasses will also facilitate new connected use cases with more immersive digital experiences. 

Of course, such ventures are not without cost, so to fund its new projects, Snap also announced a new ‘Lenslation’ event, which will see creators compete for a $200K prize pool. The event is now open and will run until January 31st. 

The Wrap

If you put all of the pieces together, it’s pretty astounding to see just how far AR development has come, and what that would mean for society on a grander scale. Snap has made AR a focus for this reason, so its reign as the definitive leader in the space is justified. Snap may not be as well-resourced as its bigger competitors (Apple, Google, and Meta), but that hasn’t stopped it from being a recognizable social powerhouse. Snap is one of the few social platforms that knows and mixes culture, art, and business well. 

Sources 

https://bit.ly/3uyv4M2