Snapchat creates starring clips for users’ avatars

Snap is kicking off Snapchat this weekend with Bitmoji TV, a four-minute series of clips starring the user’s avatar. The person with whom the user last had contact on Snapchat also appears in the clip.

There will initially be ten episodes of Bitmoji TV, writes Techcrunch. Users can view the clips, but not download or share them. Advertisements are also not included for the time being, although it seems the intention is to do so in the long term. About 70 percent of the chat app’s active users have created a Bitmoji avatar in the past. Snap acquired the company behind Bitmoji in 2016.

The videos feature the users themselves and occasionally avatars of famous people. The protagonists themselves do not talk, but other characters in the cartoons do. The cartoons should appear from Saturday to users who have downloaded the Follow Bitmoji TV page. The cartoons are another step by Snap to differentiate itself from the competition, especially Facebook services. Facebook copied Stories from Snapchat, among other things, and put it in Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, among others.