Snap announces “Simple Snapchat” redesign to compete with TikTok

Snapchat is undergoing its biggest redesign in years by simplifying from five to three tabs: one for messages and Stories with friends, one for the camera, and another for a TikTok-like feed of full-screen videos from creators and publishers.

The redesign, dubbed “Simple Snapchat,” was announced onstage Tuesday at Snap’s annual Partner Summit in Los Angeles. “It brings Stories closer to conversations, it simplifies content discovery, and it brings people straight into our camera to express themselves,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel tells The Verge.

Until now, Snapchat has consisted of five main tabs: one for the Snap Map, private chats, the camera, Stories, and Spotlight, its competitor to TikTok and Instagram Reels. Once this redesign is rolled out to Snapchat’s 850 million users, the Snap Map will be accessible from the messaging tab, along with Stories from your friends and creators you follow.

To the right of the camera will be a new, unified For You feed of full-screen videos from publishers and creators. Here, Snap has essentially merged Spotlight with content from media brands like The Wall Street Journal and the Daily Mail. The company makes most of its money from the ads it runs around this content, so it’s rolling the redesign out slowly so “we can really understand any changes in content dynamics,” according to Spiegel.

The high-level goal of this redesign is to make Snapchat more accessible and an attractive way to watch videos you’d normally go to TikTok or Instagram for. Spiegel also thinks it will translate to a better business for Snap’s creators, who collectively share more than a billion pieces of content per month in the app.

“One of the things that creators have done very effectively is use shortform video to grow their Stories audience and then monetize the Stories through our revenue share program,” he says. “I think that will become even easier with this app layout, where the Stories from your friends or from creators you’re following live on the chat page, and then you can discover new creators or new content in full screen on the third tab.”