The social media wars rage on, as apps invest heavily in new
features to grab and hold their fickle young audiences. Snapchat
seems to have developed a knack for introducing enticing features
that are also attractive to advertisers.
I recently blogged about Snapchat's geofilters feature, which permits users to add
sponsored frames to their posts. Similarly, Snapchat's lenses
feature offers sponsored animations for users to spice up their
selfies. Now, the company is reported to be acquiring Bitstrips,
whose users can create "Bitmojis" — eye-catching
cartoon avatars of themselves that can be paired with messages and
greetings.
So what makes Bitstrips worth its reported $100 million purchase
price? Advertisers. Snapchat is betting that sponsors will create
branded Bitmojis, of movie characters, for example, that users will
embed in their posts. Indications so far are that this may prove to
have been asmart bet. Users of the Bitmoji smartphone app spent an
average 8
