Moving forward with its plans to become much more than just a messaging app, Snapchat has brought in Peter Hamby, one of CNN’s best political reporters who has decided to leave the company and join Snapchat where he will act as head of news. Hamby will still contribute to CNN on air and online through 2016, but officially he’s going to be working for Snapchat. “Snapchat is one of the most exciting young companies in the world,” Hamby said in an interview yesterday.
To further expand the reach and quality of its Discover platform, it was announced on Monday that Peter Hamby, who works as a political correspondent for CNN, has been hired as Snapchat’s head of news. Discover, introduced earlier this year, is a curated area of Snapchat that delivers content from partners such as Food Network, CNN, Comedy Central and more. With Hamby’s hiring, it would seem Snapchat wants to further explore how it can utilize the platform for news. “Snapchat is one of the most exciting young companies in the world,” Hamby said. “They have a big and growing audience, and we’ve seen Discover is a huge success.” One Tweet from New York Times writer, Mike Isaac, said CNN sees about 1 million visitors per day to its Snapchat discover tab, which would explain Hamby’s hiring. It’s unclear how that number translates into unique vs. returning, but 1 million is 1 million, and grabbing Hamby shows Snapchat’s intent to continue growing its Discover tab. While the social network’s Story option is currently Snapchat’s best known feature, Discover might be poised to become the platform’s most important. It’s only been a few months since launch, but it’s seemingly just getting started.
