Birthday wishes are really having a great week on social media.
Following Facebook’s (FB) introduction Monday of 15-second videos for the occasion, ephemeral messaging app Snapchat is releasing its own special way to let users celebrate birthdays. Users can enable the “Birthday Party” feature in the settings tab in the app, where they will be prompted to add their date of birth.
Users will have access to two birthday-themed lenses: one for their own birthday and one for their friends’ birthdays. On their own birthday they’ll get access to that lens and can use it to decorate photos and videos they send to their friends via Snapchat, or post in their Story—a reel of their own content they can add to as they shoot photos and videos. On their friends’ birthdays, a cake icon with a suggestion to “Double tap to Birthday Snap” will appear next to their name in the user’s app, from which they can activate that special lens to send a wish.
It’s not clear whether Snapchat will switch up these lenses’ designs every so often, though it wouldn’t be surprising—the company often does so with other features to keep things fresh for its highly active users. According to comments made last May by co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel, the app has more than 100 million daily active users, and 65 million of them share photos and videos daily.
For more on Snapchat, watch:
Snapchat introduced lenses back in September, following the acquisition of Looksery, a startup whose app used facial detection and let users adorn selfies with overlays. Snapchat has since experimented with lenses, including a short-lived store that let users purchase certain lenses for $0.99 to own forever, and letting advertisers pay up to $750,000 per day for a branded lens.
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On Monday, Snapchat began to let people and businesses pay a fee to create a custom geofilter (sticker-like decorations available only in certain locations) they can use for events like a wedding or to promote a business like a coffee shop.
