Filters are a common element of Snapchat, and now Snap, Inc., the company behind the popular social network has just announced a new way to discover user-created content.

On Tuesday, Snap announced what it called “Lens Explorer”. The feature will allow Snapchat users to quickly discover, download, and apply a variety of different user-created selfie filters. This is an extension of the Lens Studio that Snapchat launched back in 2017, which Snap, Inc. says over 100,000 different Lenses have been submitted up to this point.

Those custom filters have apparently been viewed over 2.5 billion times, so the idea has certainly caught on with the general Snapchat user base.

“To begin browsing in Lens Explorer, just tap the new icon that appears when the Lens Carousel is active. Tap a Lens tile to unlock a Lens and be taken directly to the Snap Camera, or browse Lenses in featured Stories. Unlock a Lens by swiping up on Snaps in these Stories.”

Snapchat’s Lens Explorer feature will be available for iOS users beginning this week.

Our Take

Snapchat is still a ridiculously popular service, but it has obviously seen some major competition from Instagram over the last couple of years. As such, Snap has been working on ways to help differentiate its product, and these custom selfie filters may be one way to do that. Giving the user base a way to share their creations is a nice touch. Of course, we have already seen Snap launch small games on the platform, and a recent rumor suggests Snap is going big on the mobile game idea with its own app store at some point in the future.

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