Evan Spiegel, the CEO of Snapchat, has informed employees that the company is working on a “simplified version of Snapchat.” According to Spiegel, this streamlined version is being developed to improve accessibility to the platform.
Spiegel’s efforts to boost employee morale come at a challenging time for Snap Inc., the American company behind Snapchat, as its stock has plummeted by 50% this year.
In his letter to Snapchat employees, Spiegel noted that “investors are concerned about why we are not growing faster.”
The simplified version of Snapchat appears to be an attempt to attract older users who might find the current platform confusing. Snapchat has been more successful in appealing to younger audiences, who tend to navigate the app with ease.
Snapchat’s decision to develop a simplified version of its platform comes after Evan Spiegel, the CEO, admitted in 2017 that “Snapchat is difficult to understand or use,” particularly for older users. In response to this issue, Snap underwent a major redesign a few months later to re-engage users, but those changes were not well-received by the Snapchat community.
Now, Spiegel reports that the initial tests of the simplified version have yielded positive results. Although he did not directly reference the failure of the 2018 redesign, he emphasized the need to proceed cautiously and thoughtfully when making such significant changes to the platform.
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