Snapchat Content Business Faces 'Intense' Competition: CEO Spiegel – Variety

Snapchat cut the payout amounts for creators’ viral videos in the Spotlight section because the program was producing too much “copycat content,” according to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. Originally, Snapchat said it paid out more than $1 million per day to the top Spotlight contributors, allocated based on engagement with their content. Starting in June, the company reduced the amount it pays overall — to what the company characterized as millions of dollars per month — evidently leading some users to abandon Spotlight. According to Spiegel, speaking Wednesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia investor conference, one of the issues for Spotlight had been the homogeneity of the section’s videos: Users would see the winning content, he said, and “just make the same thing.” After changing the terms for the program to try to attract a greater diversity of content, Snap has seen record-high submissions to Spotlight, Spiegel claimed. The company is now focused on developing technology for “content understanding,” to determine at scale what makes a video compelling and to be able to recommend that to Snapchat users, Spiegel said. Spiegel said Spotlight, the TikTok-style user-contributed video section the app launched nearly a year ago, represents “the first time any…
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