Digital Week in Review: SnapChat has Competition, Google Wallet’s Prepaid Debit Card, and Vine Releases App in 19 New Languages Amsive Digital Published: November 22, 2013 2 min read Categories: News In this week’s Digital Week in Review: SnapChat has a new competitor called Reach Messenger, Google Wallet releases new physical pre-paid debit card, and Vine is now available in 19 new languages. SnapChat… Meet Reach Messenger SnapChat has made headlines lately for turning down a 3 billion dollar offer from Facebook, as well as for the legal battle between its co-founders. But there is a new kid on the block called React Messenger. React Messenger is an iPhone app which combines stickers and selfies for its own messaging service. Currently the app is free to download from the App Store. The idea of the app is for friends to chat with each other as icons while capturing real time emotions. For a tour of Reach Messenger on the iPhone, click here. Google Wallet’s New Prepaid Debit Card Google Wallet is rolling out a physical pre-paid debit card which you can put in your real life wallet. These Google prepaid debit cards are supposed to be released in about two weeks. The card is meant to allow users to access money that is currently stored in their Google Wallets. When the card is used they will receive notifications on their phone, and there is also no service fees to use the card. It is rumored that the idea of a physical payment scheme is a way for Google to collect more consumer purchasing data in order to help its online advertising sector. Google outlines what you can do with the new Google debit card in a post on their blog: Spend anywhere. Use your Wallet Balance to shop and pay in stores by swiping your card at millions of MasterCard® locations. Get cash at ATMs. Withdraw money from your Wallet Balance at ATMs. Some ATM providers may charge you a fee for cash withdrawals. Receive instant notifications when you spend money. Get instant notifications right on your phone to help you keep tabs on all of your transactions. Be free of annual or monthly fees. You can order the Google Wallet Card for free, and there are no annual or monthly service fees to use the card. Vine Now Available in 19 New Languages Vine launched in 19 new languages on iOS and Android apps including Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Portuguese , Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai and Turkish. The Android app also has Filipino and Polish. Vine is also looking to filter the videos based on trend and country so that certain app users will be exposed to videos that are popular in their geographic region. Vine had hit 40 million users back in August and is gradually increasing despite the huge competition from Instagram. Vine had this to say about the new release: “Now, it’s even easier for people around the world to watch and share posts that make us laugh, teach us something new or help us find out what’s happening in the world. We’re also beginning to explore ways to surface Vine videos that are popular in a particular country. Wherever you are in the world –– be it Japan, Brazil or somewhere in between –– we hope this update makes it easier for you to discover and create videos that bring us all closer together.”- Vine