One of the creators of the popular Snapchat phone application, David Kravitz, is a Rio alumni.

“My friends Evan and Bobby worked on the first version of Snapchat for a number of months and it was finally released on the App Store in late 2011,” Kravitz told the Mirada.

“Evan and I were the same year at Stanford, and a mutual friend introduced us in May. We clicked immediately and in June, I started work at Snapchat along with Daniel Smith.”

Snapchat is one of the most popular apps used today by teens.

The app was created by Kravitz, Daniel Smith, Bobby Murphy, and Evan Spiegel.

Snapchat allows people to send photos or videos (known as snaps) to each other which are only viewable for up to ten seconds.

Since its inception, Snapchat has gained a lot of popularity with teens through the media.

By last November, 20 million photos were being shared over Snapchat per day.

“I use it every day,” junior Morgan McClure said about Snapchat.

“I like it because I can make the ugliest faces and people can only see it for a couple seconds. I send about 20 a day.”

“I think it’s hilarious because you can look as ugly as you want for five seconds and then no one will ever see it again,” senior Allie Mering said.

“Unless they take a screenshot of it, and then the embarrassing photo is theirs forever,” added senior Brittany Hagedorn.

“With so many users and snaps, the servers can have trouble keeping up,” Kravitz said.

“We have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to make things run more quickly and efficiently.”

Although the creators of Snapchat can now be proud of their accomplishments and their success with the app, it wasn’t easy creating it.

“There are always lots of difficulties developing software,” Kravitz said.

“This summer Daniel and I worked on creating the Android version.

Photo and video applications on Android can be a bit tricky to develop for because every Android has different camera hardware.”

The development of the app took several months but in the end it paid off.

“We are still working hard to keep improving Snapchat. There are so many possibilities and we’ve only scratched the surface.”

The original reason for creating Snapchat was to have a fun way to communicate with friends and family.

Today this idea has led to its popularity and its growing number of users.

“We’re humbled and flattered by all the love and support we have gotten from the Snapchat community,” Kravitz said.

“We feel privileged to be able to work on Snapchat every day.”

“As for the future , we are continuing to work hard to make sure people keep having fun.”