What is Snapchat and how does it work?

Snapchat has more than four million users in India. Photo: AFP

NEW DELHI: After news broke out regarding Snapchat's CEO Evan Spiegel's disinterest in expanding the business to "poor countries" like India, the popular app is facing flak in the country with users rating it with a "single star". Howvwer, the company denied the remarks reports of which had resulted in the rating of the app dropping to a "single star" from an apparent "five star" on the App Store. Snapchat has more than four million users in India. What is Snapchat Snapchat is a popular mobile app, launched in 2011, that allows you share images or video clips to your friends. The catch is that the app deletes photos and videos shortly after being viewed. The person you send one to can replay it, but there are limited options for it. Though you can take a screenshot of all the snaps you receive to save them in picture form. You can capture a photo or brief video with it, then add a caption or filter/lens over top, and send the 'snap' to a friend. You can also save your own snaps before sending them. How to use Snapchat Snap: A Snap is a picture or video you send through the app to one or more of your friends. It will disappear after a maximum of 10 seconds. You can replay a Snap once, so use your replay wisely. When you open the Snapchat app, you have the camera as your main screen. You can take a photo with the front-facing camera or with the rear facing shooter. Tap the camera button to take a photo and hold it to start recording video. You can also upload photos from your camera to Snapchat. The scissors tool makes it easy to copy and paste just about anything in your Snaps. The Stickers tool will let you decorate your Snap with Stickers and a Bitmoji. You can also add a fun twist to your captions and Chats with different text styles like bold, underline, and italics. Just take a Snap, press and hold on your caption to select it, and different text styling options should appear. You can also swipe right or left on the Preview screen to add colored Filters, the current time, local weather, speed overlays, or Geofilters, and more to your Snaps. After you take a Snap, just tap this icon to save it to 'Memories', a personal collection of Snaps and Stories backed up by Snapchat. How to view 'snaps' If you see a purple or red square next to a friend’s name, it means they’ve sent you a Snap. To view a Snap, just tap it. If you receive multiple Snaps from the same friend, those Snaps will play in the order they were sent. The circle in the upper right hand corner shows how much time you have left to view each Snap. Stories: You can also create a Snapchat Story, which is a collection of snaps that tell a story about your day. The Stories section of Snapchat showcases photos and videos that you’d like to share with all your Snapchat friends. Adding a Snap to your Story allows Snapchatters to view your Snap an unlimited number of times for 24 hours (unless you delete it, of course). Snapchat launched the "Stories" format in October 2013, had 161 million daily active users in February. Swipe left on the Camera screen to open the Stories screen. Tap a Snapchatter's name to watch their Story. Filter: A Snap filter is a fun way to jazz up your Snaps by adding an overlay. Filters can change based on special events or holidays, location, or time of day. Using lenses: You can use the Lenses feature in Snapchat to scan your face and apply crazy effects. (With inputs from snapchat.com)