on ios . original author s evan spiegel bobby murphy reggie brown developer s snap inc. initial release september 2011 ; 5 years ago 2011 09 1 stable release 9.34.2 development status active operating system ios android size 95.7 mb ios 76 mb android available in 20 languages list of languages english arabic chinese simplified danish dutch finnish french romanian german greek indonesian italian japanese korean norwegian bokm l polish portuguese spanish swedish turkish russian type photo sharing instant messaging video chat multimedia license proprietary software alexa rank 2 754 august 2016 2 website snapchat.com snapchat is an image messaging and multimedia mobile application created by evan spiegel bobby murphy and reggie brown 3 when they were students at stanford university . the app s marketed product name was originally used to form the company snapchat inc. which was later renamed snap inc. the corporate headquarters are located in venice california . 4 5 6 7 the prototype for snapchat was started by brown and spiegel as a project for one of spiegel s classes at stanford where spiegel was a product design major . beginning under the name picaboo the idea was to create a selfie app which allowed users to share images that were explicitly short lived and self deleting . the temporary nature of the pictures would therefore encourage frivolity and emphasize a more natural interaction . 1 7 when in april 2011 spiegel floated the product idea in front of his class as a final project the classmates focused on the impermanent aspect of the potential product and balked at the thought of temporary photos . 7 8 murphy was eventually brought into the project to write the source code for the application and picaboo first launched as an ios only app in july 2011 from evan spiegel s living room who was still staying at home with his father when not away at school . the application was relaunched two months later under the name snapchat . 7 8 9 10 snapchat evolved into a mix of private messaging and public content including brand networks publications and live events such as sports and music . nevertheless according to survey studies conducted in march 2016 the personal oriented messaging was still being accessed by users more than the publicly offered content that was being presented . 71 % of users surveyed said that they preferred the app for its chat messaging and imaging services versus 5 % who almost exclusively chose the various events published features and media content on a daily basis . 24 % responded that they accessed all features equally . however about three quarters of those surveyed were also familiar with the events media brands and celebrity content having a favorable opinion of those areas . 11 contents 1 history 1.1 prototype 1.2 growth 2 features 2.1 core functionality 2.2 stories and discover 2.3 messaging 3 user interaction 3.1 demographics 3.2 communication 4 business 4.1 funding and valuation 4.2 monetization 4.3 corporate renaming and diversifying 5 privacy and security 5.1 december 2013 hack 5.2 federal trade commission 6 see also 7 references 8 further reading 9 external links history further information timeline of snapchat prototype according to documents and deposition statements reggie brown brought the idea for a disappearing pictures app to evan spiegel because spiegel had prior business experience . brown and spiegel then pulled in bobby murphy who had experience coding . the three worked closely together for several months straight through the initial product release until spiegel and murphy decided to deny brown further access a few weeks before relaunching the app as snapchat . 12 early on the snapchat team focused on usability and technical aspects rather than branding efforts . 8 an exception was the decision to keep a mascot designed by brown ghostface chillah named after ghostface killah of the hip hop group wu tang clan . 8 13 on may 8 2012 reggie brown sent an email to evan spiegel during their senior year at stanford in which he offered to sell any former stake he d had in the original product . lawyers for snapchat responded by insisting that he had never had any creative connection to the company . the attorneys also accused brown of committing fraud against spiegel and murphy by falsely claiming to be a product inventor . on behalf of their clients the law firm concluded that brown had made no contributions of value or worth and was therefore entitled to a share of nothing . 14 in their first blog post dated may 9 2012 ceo evan spiegel described the company mission snapchat isn t about capturing the traditional kodak moment . it s about communicating with the full range of human emotion not just what appears to be pretty or perfect . 1 they present snapchat as the solution to stresses caused by the longevity of personal information on social media evidenced by emergency detagging of facebook photos before job interviews and photoshopping blemishes out of candid shots before they hit the internet . 1 growth in may 2012 25 images were being sent per second 15 and as of november 28 2012 users had shared over one billion photos on the snapchat ios app with 20 million photos being shared per day . 15 16 in november 2012 spiegel cited problems with userbase scalability as the reason why snapchat was experiencing some difficulties delivering its images known as snaps in real time . 15 snapchat was released as an android app on october 29 2012 . 15 in december 2012 snapchat added the ability to send video snaps in addition to photos . by holding down on the photo button while inside the app a video of up to 10 seconds in length can be captured . after a single viewing the video disappears by default . spiegel explained that this process allowed the video data to be compressed into the size of a photo . 17 in february 2013 reggie brown sued chief executive officer evan spiegel and chief technical officer bobby murphy . brown said that he had once been the chief marketing officer . brown also claimed that he had come up with the original concept which he had called picaboo and that he had created the mascot logo for the product . originally titled toyopa group llc brown said that he had named the newly formed company as well . brown s lawyers offered documentation of a collaboration with spiegel and murphy but snapchat described the lawsuit as meritless and called brown s tactics a shakedown . during april s depositions brown testified that he had believed he was an equal partner and that he had agreed to share costs and profits . spiegel instead described brown as an unpaid intern who had been provided valuable experience and although murphy claimed that he had not fully understood what brown s role was supposed to have been he too characterized brown s involvement as having been that of an internship . months later spiegel dismissed the lawsuit as an example of opportunists who seek out rapidly successful companies in an attempt to also profit from the hard work of others . 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 in june 2013 snapchat version 5.0 dubbed banquo was released for ios . the updated version introduced several speed and design enhancements including swipe navigation double tap to reply an improved friend finder and in app profiles . 25 the name is a reference to the ghostly hero from shakespeare s macbeth a character in the play who is ultimately seen to be victorious over evil . 26 also in june 2013 snapchat introduced snapkidz for users under 13 years of age . snapkidz was part of the original snapchat application and was activated when the user provided a date of birth to verify his her age . snapkidz allowed children to take snaps and draw on them but they could not send snaps to other users and could only save snaps locally on the device being used . 27 in october 2013 snapchat introduced the my story feature which allows users to compile snaps into chronological storylines accessible to all of their friends . 28 in december 2013 emily white who had formally been a high profile executive with facebook instagram and google was hired as chief operating officer for snapchat . her tenure with the company ended in march 2015 . 29 on may 1 2014 the ability to communicate via video chat was added . direct messaging features were also included in the update allowing users to send ephemeral text messages to friends and family while saving any needed information by clicking on it . 30 on september 9 2014 snapchat s owners announced that they had settled the lawsuit filed by fellow student and former friend reggie brown for an undisclosed amount . as part of the settlement they credited brown with the conceptual idea for snapchat . 3 the press release published by snapchat s communication department quoted spiegel we are pleased that we have been able to resolve this matter in a manner that is satisfactory to mr. brown and the company . we acknowledge reggie s contribution to the creation of snapchat and appreciate his work in getting the application off the ground . 3 in 2015 snapchat acquired the start up looksery an app which allows users to alter video images of themselves by utilizing specific photoshopping graphics . 31 according to snapchat s published statistics as of may 2015 the app s users were sending 2 billion videos per day reaching 6 billion by november . 32 by 2016 snapchat had hit 10 billion daily video views . 33 in may 2016 the company leased 79 000 square feet of office space available at the santa monica airport to be used for at least five years . 34 also in may 2016 snapchat raised 1.81 billion in equity offering suggesting strong investor interest in the company . 35 by may 31 2016 the ephemeral messaging app had achieved almost 10 million daily active users in the united kingdom . 36 in september 2016 the snapchat software mobile application officially became part of a product company named snap inc. along with the introduction of the company s first hardware gadget a pair of sunglasses with a built in camera that can record 30 seconds of video at a time . 37 features core functionality snapchat is primarily used for creating multimedia messages referred to as snaps ; snaps can consist of a photo or a short video and can be edited to include filters and effects text captions and drawings . 38 39 a feature known as geofilters was added in july 2014 which allows special graphical overlays to be available if the user is within a certain geographical location such as a city event or destination . 40 41 the lens feature introduced in september 2015 allows users to add real time effects into their snaps by using face detection technology which is activated by long pressing on a face within the viewfinder . 42 snaps can be directed privately to selected contacts or to a semi public story . 28 the private message photo snaps can be viewed for a user specified length of time 1 to 10 seconds as determined by the sender before they become inaccessible . users were previously required to hold down on the screen in order to view a snap ; this behavior was removed in july 2015 . 43 the requirement to hold on the screen was intended to frustrate the ability to take screenshots of snaps ; the snapchat app does not prevent screenshots from being taken but can notify the sender if it detects that it has been saved . however these notifications can be bypassed through either unauthorized modifications to the app or by obtaining the image