Snapchat Acquires Recommendation App Vurb to Enter Search Arena

Snapchat is growing fast, with as many as 150 million daily users—more than veteran Twitter—and a potential market valuation of $20 billion.

But the company is not without its problems. Revenueis one. The interface, clumsy and not newbie-friendly, is another. Snapchat hopes to partially address this with the acquisition of Vurb, a mobile search and recommendation app.

In Significant Shift in Strategy, Snapchat Launches Memories to Save Snaps

Snapchat’s $110-million purchase of Vurb is an investment in search: the app’s technology, when integrated into Snapchat, should help users discover new accounts to follow, which is currently a cumbersome task. It could also open a potential revenue stream for Snapchat via targeted search ads.

Instagram Turns Into Snapchat with Launch of ‘Stories’ Feature