Snapchat unveils Groups and three new features welcoming holiday season

Ushering in the time of togetherness with the arrival of the holiday season, Snapchat found the perfect time to announce Groups, a feature that lets users create and send messages to a group of people at once.

“It’s always better together!” writes Team Snapchat on Snap Inc.’s official blog, bringing ephemerality to the traditional group chat with two more creative tools aimed at enhancing the Snapchat experience with a hint of personal touch. Snapchat is also incorporating support for Shazam in their app, which will let users recognize the music playing within Snapchat.

Scissors and Paintbrush accompany Groups, as Snapchat’s stocking stuffer for the happy holidays. With Groups, Snapchat users can now communicate with up to 16 friends together, so if there is a picture or video you wish to share with multiple people in one place, you can do so.

The Snapchat rules still apply as the messages sent to Groups will disappear after a 24 hour time frame and can only be viewed by each member only once, as they always have been.

Realizing that not every member of the Group might be as enthusiastic as the others, Snapchat grants users the ability to eliminate the possibility of spam with an added functionality. Usernames of the active group member will display at the bottom of the screen, tapping on which will let the two parties have a one-on-one conversation.

Scissors lets users make their own stickers by cutting out a part of a Snap on the preview screen, which needless to say has the potential to be a huge hit among the majority of younger users that prefer Snapchat to other social media platforms.

Turning Snaps into Snapster pieces is easy with Paintbrush that allows users to apply the feature to pictures saved in Memories for a truly unique share-worthy work of art.

Snap Inc. as it is now officially known as, ends the year on a high note, with their newly released Spectacles simmering with anticipation, and expected to go public by March next year with one of the largest IPOs in recent times since Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. two years ago.