Snap announced the launch of a redesigned service in November, saying it wants to “separate the social from the media” by personalising content for each user. While Snap initially planned to make the redesign widely available to users in early December, the company has been slow to make it available outside a handful of countries like Australia and Canada. Snap currently intends to make the redesign available to all users by the end of the first quarter, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Snap’s content division is responsible for working with more than 70 publishing partners like NBC and BuzzFeed to produce original videos for the app. The company recently said that it will use human editors to review user-submitted content that is featured in the redesign app’s feed, a move it hopes will distance the platform from the "fake news" accusations that have hit rival Facebook.
The layoffs come on the heels of a companywide memo Snap CEO Evan Spiegel sent this week detailing the importance of building a “scalable” business, an organisation that can also scale internally. “This means that we must become exponentially more productive as we add additional resources and team members,” the CEO said.
