By Emma Roth, a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. It might’ve taken a few years, but now Snapchat will finally let you Embed the videos, lenses, and stories from its platform onto the web. While Snapchat previously didn’t allow users to embed videos due to the fleeting (and often private) nature of its posts, giving users this ability is another sign that it’s trying to bolster its shortform video feed — Spotlight — to compete with TikTok and Instagram.That means you might come across playable content from Snapchat when scrolling through a website or reading an article online. Snapchat shows how this might look in its announcement of the feature, which contains an embedded lens and a spotlight video. You can click to view any embedded videos directly from the webpage you’re on, as well as even try out the embedded lens (given that the device you’re using has a camera).To embed content from Snapchat onto a webpage, simply navigate to the video, lens, or story you want to embed, copy its link, and then paste it into a web browser. From there, select the embed icon and copy the provided HTML code. You can then paste that into whatever webpage you’re looking to embed the content on. After rolling out the ability to access Snapchat on the web for paid subscribers, Snap made the browser-based version of the app available to everyone last September. But now Snap is taking things a bit further by allowing users to embed content on the web, furthering its goal of attracting more users outside the app. As shown in an internal memo obtained by The Verge’s Alex Heath last week, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel aims to reach 475 million daily active users in the fourth quarter of 2024, which it’ll need if it wants to keep up the shortform video behemoth that is TikTok and Instagram’s growing Reels community. / Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox daily.The Verge is a vox media network© 2023 Vox Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved
