Possibly in an attempt to slow its plummeting stock, Snapchat has announced that it could be tweaking some of its unpopular redesign. The app is testing out updates that would restore celebrity stories to their place alongside users' friends on a single page. As Variety points out, however, this announcement accompanied a nosedive in the app's stock on Wednesday, declining by 7.5 percent to a price of $14.46 per share.
Snapchat released a statement about the tests, saying "we are always listening to our community and will continue to test updates that we hope will give Snapchatters the best possible experience on our platform." This is most likely a reference to the huge backlash the company received over the redesign, causing some celebs like Kylie Jenner to opt out of the app, decreasing its overall popularity.
The company also saw a major loss after a controversial marketing ad featuring Rihanna and Chris Brown hit the platform. Rihanna publicly dragged the app for the ad, which made light of Brown's notorious domestic abuse of the singer, and Chrissy Teigen soon followed suit.
The app originally separated brands and celebrities from users’ friends last year, but its newly tested design would present it all together on one Discover page. The categories would still be separated, but Snapchat hopes this will make things easier for publishers. This would turn back a redesign decision that garnered 1.25 million signatures on a Change.org petition to convince Snapchat to change it back. “With the release of the new Snapchat update, many users have found that it has not made the app easier to use, but has in fact made many features more difficult,” the petition read.
Who knows if this move will get Snapchat out of the red zone it's been in for the past several months, but between a bad redesign, controversial Rihanna ad, and its unpopular big brother-esque feature the app needs to figure out something to bring users back, and quick.
