Snapchat is giving fans of Bitmoji another creative way to integrate the animated characters in to its offerings via custom geofilters.
For the uninitiated, Bitmoji is an app that allows you to create your very own cartoon version of yourself to use in your snaps. Snapchat reportedly bought Bitstrips (the makers of Bitmoji) for a cool $100 million in March. Custom geofilters, which have been around since February, essentially allow you to create location-based graphics for a price.
Combining the two features makes sense. After all, adding your personal Bitmoji to a custom geofilter for a birthday or wedding day is another way to make the final product a little more personal. The cartoon characters can also ensure that you (or the person you’re creating the geofilter for) are at the center of all the snaps shared on the day.
In order to take advantage of the update, you have to first authenticate your Bitmoji account when creating your geofilter, according to VentureBeat. If you have a friend with an existing Bitmoji account in Snapchat, you’ll be able to use your “friendmoji” (the icon featuring both of your characters).
In late August, Snapchat added editing tools to its custom geofilters portal, including customizable themes for various special occasions, making it even easier to create the graphics. The company has also announced a new Thanksgiving template just in time for the holidays.
Earlier in August, Bitmoji released a Chrome extension that lets you insert the avatars pretty much anywhere across the web. The extension is compatible with Twitter, Facebook, Slack, and most email programs.
In other Snapchat news, the visual messaging app’s parent company Snap reportedly just filed for its initial public offering, which is expected to take place in March 2017 and could see it valued at $25 billion.
You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Scroll through any app for five minutes, and you’ll find someone maxxing something. Their skin, their sleep, their protein intake, even their Friday night on the couch. That little suffix has been everywhere this year, and now it has a trophy to show for it. In a recent announcement, Dictionary.com named maxxing its 2026 Word of the Year.
What are people actually doing when they’re maxxing?
Instagram is testing a new format for long-form videos called Features. It allows select creators to upload horizontal videos running up to 90 minutes long. Instagram has already tested the new format with creators in Brazil, and now, it's expanding to tens of thousands of creators across the US.
How will Instagram's new Features format work?