Add a/more snapchat-like feature(s)

[forteller]

Snapchat is hugely popular. The latest numbers are supposed to be over 300 million monthly users, and they're growing fast. 39% of US teens say Snap is their favorite social media, and here in Norway more than 50% of those who use social media use Snap.

No wonder that Facebook wanted to buy them for 3 billion dollars! (Well, I always wonder at numbers like that, but still…)

When that didn't work Facebook instead added snap-like features to both Messenger and Instagram. Instagram Stories now has 200 million daily active users just nine months into its existence.

It is obvious that people really, really like this feature. Yet I have still to see a single Free/open source and encrypted actual alternative! This could be a breakthrough for Wire, if you do it right!

I've mentioned the need for a Snapchat alternative to some other FOSS enthusiasts, but they have mostly said stuff like "we do have that, we have Signal, XMPP, etc". What they miss is that there is a big difference between a normal chat app and Snapchat. This should be obvious from the fact that Snap has taken off even though there where tons of established chat apps already when they arrived.

The fact that I can send a disappearing image trough Wire is not enough. The key to Snapchats success, as far as I can tell, is the simplicity in it. You just take a photo, decide who gets it and you're done. No extra steps, and especially not before taking the pic. Another key feature is the option of showing one pic to many or even all of your contacts in one easy gesture. You don't have to open many different chat screens.

I think would implement this in this way (though I haven't thought a lot about it, so I'm sure there might be better ways):

1. Open Wire
2. Swipe right on the name of the person you want to send a pic to and immediatly get to a fullscreen camera view similar to Snapchats
3. Take the pic, get the option of adding drawings, choose length, etc
4. Click send to send it to the person you chose or either click another button or long press the same send button or swipe on the screen or something to get to a screen where you choose more people to send it to or to add it to your "story", which shows it to everyone.

Receive a direct Swire (:P) would work just like on Snap, I imagine, and when the Swire has "played" you get sent back to the list view where you can swipe right to Swire back, tap to open the regular chat window, or exit.

"Story" Swires might be shown at the top of the list, like how Facebook Messenger does it? Facebook have a lot of expertise, no shame in learning from what they do.

Unintrusive, quite intuitive, and totally hidden for those who don't want to use it, and something I think a ton of people would love to use. At least I would.

It's hard to get people to switch to another chat app. This would be the encrypted and privacy friendly Snapchat alternative, and be a lot easier to get people to try, IMHO.

[WildYorkies]

The only thing that will increase adoption and stickiness at this point is to increase performance. It's currently too slow for people to want to use. This (and other new features) would only bloat it further. See: #874

[WildYorkies]

The only thing that will increase adoption and stickiness at this point is to increase performance. It's currently too slow for people to want to use. This (and other new features) would only bloat it further. See: #874