Snapchat gives more than 20 Discover partners ability to crowdsource Our Stories content

The selected media partners will be able to share their Our Stories content on the Discover platforms, as well as embed them on their sites and social channels.

During the coming weeks, more than 20 of Snapchat’s Discover partners will be able to build their own Our Stories content from publicly submitted video and photo Snaps and use them on their Discover channels as well as embed them on their own websites and social channels.

Discover partners will be able to include added editorial to their Our Stories — such as text or graphics to give more context to an image or video.

Snapchat is also monetizing the newly created Our Stories content, placing ads within the collection of Snaps and sharing revenue generated from the ads with the respective Discover partners. Ads placed in the Our Stories are bought via the platform’s Ads Manager, with advertisers able to select run-of-app placement or premium content — but not by Discover channel. Any Our Stories content embedded outside of Snapchat will not include ads.

Here’s the full list of selected Discover partners that will be able to crowdsource Our Stories content:

• Brut
• CNN
• Cosmopolitan
• Daily Mail
• Daquan
• Dodo
• Harper’s Bazaar
• iHeart
• The Infatuation
• Jukin
• Lad Bible
• Love Stories TV
• Mic
• NBC News
• NBC Sports
• NBC’s Today Show
• New York Post
• NowThis
• Overtime
• Refinery 29
• Telemundo
• The Tab
• Viacom
• Vice
• Wave.TV
• Whalar

Overtime CEO Dan Porter said he was thrilled to partner with Snap to curate “on-the-ground fan videos” and turn them into Overtime Snapchat content. Group Nine Media’s CEO also offered a comment on the announcement.

“This new curation tool allows us the opportunity to lean even more heavily into what we do best — being part of the conversation and telling authentic stories that resonate deeply with young people,” said Leher.

First launched in 2015, Our Stories started out as curated content created by Snapchat’s own editorial team. Snap says its in-house editors will continue to to build Our Stories, in addition to what’s being created by the Discover partners.

More than 75 million people have watched Our Story content on Snapchat’s Discover platform during the past month, and thousands of websites have embedded Our Story content since Snapchat made it possible for brands and publishers to share Snap content outside of the app as part of its Stories Everywhere initiative.

By giving its Discover partners a new way to curate and distribute content, Snapchat aims to win back the audience it lost after rolling out a major redesign last year. The company experienced a slight increase in its daily active users between Q4 2017 and Q1 2018, but reported a two percent drop in its daily active users three months later during its Q2 2018 earnings call.

The real test to gauge just how popular this move will be hinges on how fast Facebook or Instagram picks it up for its own Stories content.