The rise of apps like Instagram and Snapchat has put photo effects front and center in the world of picture messaging, giving users not only the ability to send images to each other, but to personalise them with little doodles, lurid colors, bunny ears. Now, an app maker that has built a bunch of these is launching an SDK that will let any app add these kinds of effects to their platforms, too.
Kanvas , a messaging app acquired by AOL in 2015 that lets you take, manipulate and send photos and other graphics with added filters, GIFs and other decorations, is launching at CES this week a new SDK that will let other third-party apps tap into and use Kanvas\u2019 in their own picture messaging services.
This is a play for scale \u2014 and ultimately scale that can be used to grow AOL\u2019s advertising network. When AOL (which also owns TechCrunch) acquired Kanvas, the app had 1 million users; now it has 5 million active users, CEO and co-founder Vic Singh told me in an interview, and the aim is to grow that by 5 million more with today\u2019s launch.
And once there is enough scale, the idea will be to use this new network of usage as a vehicle to make money: advertisers can sponsor filters, and AOL (which itself was acquired by Verizon partly as a mobile advertising play) will be able to sell this as another advertising unit to clients who are already buying display and video ads or AOL properties.
The SDK will initially cover four features that Kanvas has built both in-house and by way of acquisition:<\/p>\n