Shares of Snap (SNAP) are falling sharply after news the company was refurbishing its recent redesign.
UPDATED SNAPCHAT FORMAT: According to media reports out late Tuesday, Snap, which describes itself as a camera company, said it will be revamping its redesign it introduced late in 2017. Tuesday night's report from Recode said "Now Snapchat is rolling out a redesign to the redesign for a small group of users -- it's taking user-generated Stories and putting them on the Discover page, where they'll exist alongside stuff from brands, celebrities and publishers -- similar to how they did before the redesign was rolled out." The Recode report included a statement from a company spokesperson: "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."
ORIGINAL REDESIGN: The original Snapchat redesign was focused on separating the content created by peoples' friends from the content created by brands, celebrities, and publishers. The earlier redesign allowed Snapchat to continue opening as a camera but it promised to have a more distinct separation between content from friends and content from publishers. Snap's CEO Evan Spiegel said at the time, "One of the complaints we've heard about social media is that photos and videos from your friends are mixed in with content from publishers and creators and influencers," The first redesign faced immediate criticism with users and the backlash was fueled by celebrity tweets like the one from Kylie Jenner in late February: "sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad."
POSSIBLE REASONS FOR THE MOVE: Recode said on Tuesday that the company may have discovered that people were watching or creating fewer Stories as a result of the earlier redesign, "and it's trying to rectify the situation by putting Stories in another section inside the app where more people will see them."
PRICE ACTION: Shares of Snap, which reports quarterly results next week, are down 7.2% to $14.50 per share.
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