Snapchat finally starts dabbling with advertising, and people are freaking out

Snapchatters in the US probably noticed something different over the course of the weekend. The photo messaging app that boasts over US$10-billion valuation, and 100 million monthly active users just ran its first ad.

Under the section, Recent Updates, there appeared a sponsored-labeled post that promoted a 20-second movie trailer for the horror movie, Ouija. Yes, the super scary upcoming horror movie, not a car brand or health insurance:

You can choose to interact with the ad by tapping on the post, or you could just wait 24 hours for it to disappear, like all SnapChat posts.

In a blog post the company wrote that this is the first step towards making money:

Understandably, a lot of folks want to know why we’re introducing advertisements to our service. The answer is probably unsurprising – we need to make money. Advertising allows us to support our service while delivering neat content to Snapchatters. We promise that we’ll use the money we make to continue to surprise the Snapchat community with more terrific products – that’s what we love to do!

Some users’ reactions:

The fact that this is on snapchat scares me. #Ouija pic.twitter.com/NI9JX9QwIO

— Grant Kraus (@G_Easy5) October 18, 2014

Seeing Ouija as a sponsored snapchat story pic.twitter.com/oUk7AuNlGa

— Alex D’Arpino (@alexdarpino) October 18, 2014

*seeing Ouija on my snapchat stories* pic.twitter.com/o0yTJUZBPU

— marissa (@marissa_rebecca) October 18, 2014

You have to admit that with a US$10-billion valuation, and having turned down massive deals from Facebook and the like, the company has to experiment with revenue stream some how.