Faisal Ghaffar 
Snap plans to begin a new business for creators letting them make lots of money with Augmented Reality or AR features on its platform. Many social media users have already been using Augmented Reality but do not know what it is and how it works.
They are already tapping a button on their smartphone’s screens and having things transformed in a completely new way. They might not consider these features some revolutionary technology and call them filters, lenses, or perhaps something else. But, all that you see transforming into a new style is Augmented Reality.
Snap organized its Lensfest Developer event in the following week. It revealed how it has let more than 300,000 developers build AR products for the platform. According to Snap, the company and developers have collaboratively created over three million lenses that received five trillion views over a year ago. Snap is considering this number as evidence that Augmented Reality has already found several product-market fits.
Snap has been in the news because of its Lenfest and monetization. It continues to work with some creative and experienced creators to make lenses with digital products that users can purchase with a Snap token. These include advanced lens control, in-game products, or other virtual items.
Snap’s latest idea has reportedly borrowed from the successful in-game financial system of trendy platforms, such as Fortnite and Roblox. The company anticipates it will come in handy for developers to earn money and motivate them to keep going.
Bobby Murphy, CTO of Snap, says the company owns this idea optimistically, believing it will bring more opportunities for developers and users using Snapchat to pay for valuable experience. These opportunities can make more effort, investment, and time and boost the quality level of use cases.
Augmented Reality is soon to get better, though it will only get huge if it incorporates into a big business. The latest money-making tool may not seem significant in the presence of Augmented Reality, but Snap considers it a primary bet for success.
Snap has the idea of the actual potential of Augmented Reality, and it knows smartphone’s face lenses are not the final thing of AR. Instead, it will include always-on experiences, dedicated glasses, and software apps capable of understanding what users are looking for and what they might want to do using the app.
According to the Director of Computer Vision Engineering, Qi Pan, if he needs to use a piece of hardware on his face, it should add value to every minute of his life when he is wearing it; otherwise, he won’t want to do it.
The company has a reputation for being the R&D department for many tech giants around. They are also likely to replicate Snap’s strategies and ideas and provide them with a more lucrative developer ecosystem besides a larger audience. Snap does not want the cycle to get repeated and plans to build victorious products and an AR business before others do.
It is also crucial for the company’s long-term prospects. Developers have been using the latest version of Snap’s Spectacles for more than a year. Although it is still not a modern device with overheating issues, a small view field, low resolution, and long battery life, Murphy believes he has observed enough to say that the company is on the right track.
