Google set to build Snapchat-inspired news system

One of the core features of Snapchat is its Discover mode, which allows brands to create visual stories for sharing on the platform. A new report suggests that Google could be developing a very similar feature for sharing media content called “Stamp”.

The Wall Street Journal suggests that Google is already in discussion with various publishers including Vox Media, CNN, Mic, The Washington Post, and Time who are all said to be participating in the platform. Google is reportedly set to announce the system as early as next week inspired by the very company it wanted to purchase just last year.

The Stamp system is said to be built around Google’s accelerated mobile platform (AMP) that optimizes mobile webpages for faster loading. The Stories + AMP (STAMP) platform could represent news as “several swipeable slides encompass text, photos and video”, according to the source.

Stamp would accompany a raft of other platforms from the likes of Facebook and Apple who are already in the news delivery game ingesting content into their respective services. Google has an advantage over the other services whereby it can reference Stamp stories directly from search results just like it does with AMP currently.

A Google spokesperson responded to Engadget with a statement when queried about Stamp. “The success of the open source AMP project is down to the constant collaboration with publishers that involves working early on upcoming features. We don’t have anything to announce at the moment but look forward to sharing more soon.”

It seems that if Stamp is being launched next week then Google is predictably being quiet about it. It does however make perfect sense for Google to leverage its AMP platform and vast view of the news via its crawlers to ingest into its own new system with associated social sharing features.

If Google does in fact have something in the pipeline, it seems we won’t have to wait long until we see it materialize.