Snapchat's new yellow button could be a game-changer

It's not uncommon to see a "Sign into Facebook" or "Sign into Google" button the first time you try a new app. Depending on the site, you might even login with your Amazon, Pinterest or Twitter account.

But Snapchat? That yellow box made its first official appearance on Tuesday.

The world got a glimpse at what could be a harbinger of possibilities for the upstart social networking service when a yellow "Log in with Snapchat" button popped up inside the Bitmoji Keyboard app.

Bitmoji is an app that lets users create funny emojis styled in their own likeness. Snapchat quietly acquired the company a few months ago and on Tuesday, officially integrated the emoji app into its service. Snapchat has bought companies before and added them to its app, like integrating the Snapcodes that make it easy to add people, but the Bitmoji acquisition was different.

Instead of adding Bitmoji as a default option inside the Snapchat app, Snapchat users had to download the Bitmoji app separately. After downloading the app however, Snapchat let users sign-in with their existing Snapchat credentials - no need to create a separate Bitmoji account.

It's not quite the same as using your Snapchat profile in place of a different username and password for every site, but it could hint at the future where a yellow "Log in with Snapchat" becomes as widespread of an option as continuing with your Facebook ID.

One small step for Snapchat

Right now, Snapchat is one of the few social platforms not to have a sort of "digital ID" that follows you around the web.

The Facebook logins, for example, give apps your name and email address in exchange for the site feeding the social network information about your visit. Signing up with your LinkedIn on certain sites can auto-fill a résumé.

Snapchat has been a closed book with no outside information going in or out - and it still is for now.

By adding the login with Snapchat feature for Bitmoji, Snapchat isn't opening itself up to other developers yet since it owns the Bitmoji app. But it could foreshadow what's to come.

Imagine being able to one day log into Spotify with your Snapchat ID, so that you can play music in the back of your videos. Or if you're looking at an ad on Snapchat and want to buy an item, Snapchat could be an easy way to sign in - and it'd have more accurate data of when an ad leads to a sale.

Snapchat's Evan Spiegel has so far been against the creepy ads that track you, but one of advertisers' biggest gripes with Snapchat is the inability to target ads narrowly. When it comes to ad information, Snapchat really only has broad buckets of information like age and location from when a user signs up. Facebook on the other hand can tell if you clicked on a product on one site and then show it to you on your news feed in an ad moments later.

There's no indication so far other than the yellow box in the Bitmoji app that Snapchat's ready to open up the gates. But if Snapchat ever decides to create a universal log-in system, it could win points with both users and advertisers, unlocking more revenue for Snapchat.