Snapchat Remix: New TikTok Duets Competitor

Snapchat Introduces “Remix” – A TikTok Duets-Inspired Feature

Many potential competitors to TikTok have struggled due to a lack of comprehensive content creation capabilities. These shortcomings often include missing features like advanced filters, diverse effects, and tools for creatively utilizing existing content, such as TikTok’s popular Stitch and Duet functionalities.

Snapchat is now addressing this issue with the development of “Remix,” a feature closely resembling TikTok’s Duets. This new tool will enable users to respond to Snaps by creating new content alongside them.

Initial Functionality and Testing

Initially, the feature will allow users to reply to a friend’s Story with a remixed Snap. Users can record their own Snap while the original plays, mirroring the experience of a TikTok Duet.

Snap has confirmed that Remix is currently undergoing external testing. This follows Instagram’s recent public testing of a similarly named “Remix” feature, focused on Reels content, with prior tests conducted on Stories.

How Remix Compares to Instagram and TikTok

Instagram’s Remix feature allows users to create Reels where their video and another user’s video are displayed side-by-side. This is essentially Instagram’s adaptation of TikTok’s Duets, a tool frequently used for engaging with other users’ content.

TikTok users utilize Duets for a wide range of creative interactions, including singing, dancing, comedic skits, recipe demonstrations, reaction videos, and promoting content from emerging creators. It fosters a sense of community, transforming the platform beyond simple video viewing.

Expanding Duet Formats

Last autumn, TikTok announced the introduction of several new layout options for Duets, expanding beyond the traditional left-right arrangement. These included top-bottom layouts, a dedicated “react” layout, and a three-screen layout.

Snap appears to be considering incorporating some of these same Duet formats, along with other innovative options, into its Remix feature.

Remix Feature Options

Within Snapchat’s Remix feature, users will be presented with a selection of options for combining Snaps. These include side-by-side and top-and-bottom formats, as well as layouts that allow for content overlay or reaction recordings.

Privacy Controls and Access

Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi discovered that Remix also includes a toggle switch, enabling users to tag friends and control permissions for remixing or sharing their Snaps.

Currently, the “Remix” feature is accessible through the same menu used for reporting Snaps or sending them to others.

Integration with Spotlight

This menu is also available within Snapchat’s TikTok competitor, Spotlight, which launched last year.

Spotlight features a video feed of short-form, entertaining videos, similar to TikTok, and utilizes popular music through Snap’s licensing agreements. Remix is expected to eventually be integrated into Spotlight, providing a natural avenue for user interaction and content creation.

Snap’s Confirmation

Snap confirmed to TechCrunch that it has begun testing Remix on its application.

A spokesperson stated, “We can confirm that externally we are testing the ability to reply to a friend’s story with a remixed Snap.” They further explained that the feature allows users to “build on your friend’s Snap while recording your own alongside the original as it plays for contextual conversations on Snapchat.”

The company has not yet provided a specific timeline for a wider release of the feature.