Snapchat is getting serious about short videos with its new standalone editing app ‘Story Studio’

• Snapchat has launched ‘Story Studio’, a standalone video editing app for Spotlight.
• This app will let users edit vertical videos better and share it to Spotlight, Snapchat stories or other platforms.
• Story Studio also has Snapchat insights on what’s trending on the app.

Snap Inc. has launched a standalone video editing app called “Story Studio”. The company had first announced the app in May and its early version is now available for iOS users in the US, UK and Canada.

Story Studio is a video editing app for vertical videos and for Snapchat’s TikTok-like feature Spotlight that the company launched in November last year. Similar to TikTok and Instagram Reels, Spotlight lets Snapchat users post vertical videos and it has an endless scrolling feed. Story Studio will let Snapchat users edit their vertical videos that can be exported directly to Spotlight or uploaded to a Snapchat story.

Snap is also letting users download these edited videos and share them on other platforms but without the app’s watermark. So, users can share it to Reels without the fear of their videos getting demoted. Instagram demotes videos that are watermarked, an attempt to reduce the number of TikTok videos on its platform.

Story Studio will feature Snapchat Lenses along with songs and stickers for vertical videos. It also has the basic editing tools like trimming videos, and editing them frame by frame. There’s a built-in share button through which users can directly share their videos to Snapchat Spotlight. The video editing app also has Snapchat insights that will show trends for sounds, hashtags and lenses so users have a better understanding on what can make their video get more reach.

Snap has paid over $250 million to creators through its Spotlight fund

Along with the launch of the app, Snap also announced it has paid more than $250 million to 12,000 creators through its Spotlight fund. The company had initially announced it would pay creators up to $1 million per day for Spotlight videos, and it then changed it to “millions” per month from June earlier this year. The company has not specified exactly how much is the payout currently but it plans on continuing to reward creators for Spotlight videos.

Rivals like Instagram also announced last month that creators can earn up to $10,000 through Reels. TikTok also launched its $200 million creator fund last year that is said to grow to $1 billion over the next three years. The company doesn’t specify how the payout works but TikTok creators reportedly earn between two and four cents per 1,000 views.

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