Snapchat reportedly hit 160M daily users and $400M revenue in 2016

[fnovd]

As someone who never really "got" Snapchat, I found this interesting:

>Snapchat has done an impressive job soaking up attention by covering three different use cases with a single app: private messaging, social media Stories broadcasting, and professional Discover content. These work together to give people something to do even if their friends don’t post interesting stories, they’re waiting for people to reply, or they don’t resonate with the featured publishers.

[ben_jones]

Most people between the ages of 10-30 have been conditioned to pull out their phone during the slightest feeling of boredom, awkwardness, loneliness, or of course notification noise / buzz. It then becomes a question of which App gets opened first which usually is decided by the amount of 'reward' generated by the action.

I can only speak to my demo, but the order is usually:

Tier 1:

* Text messaging

* Snapchat

Tier 1.5:

* Tinder

* Mobile games (only applies to a subset of users 'gamers')

Tier 2:

* Facebook

* Instagram

Tier 3:

* Browser

* Mobile games (most people)

* Other

You'll notice personal communications falls above content sharing. Snapchat is a definitive type of personal communication and is pretty firmly planted (IMO).

[nkkollaw]

I thought it was for sexting..?

[debt]

I assume Snapchat has a Disney-esque size valuation around $176B. All these social networks morph into media companies and Disney is a good fit because it caters primarily to the youth.

[eddd]

20% per year is not impressing to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I admire them as a company, but the grow rate is too slow, to compete with top social platforms.

[nfbush]

Better a company that generates revenue than one that uses all it's money on growth and has billions $ negative. I hate this idea of a growth rate being "too slow", all it does is encourage monopolisation which is bad for people. Edit: spelling

[aznpwnzor]

And their GCP contract is for $400M a year?

[hkothari]

I came here wondering the exact same thing. Seems insane.

[lz400]

I've been hearing they are losing a lot of users to Instagram, since the latter basically copied the best features of Snapchat. Anyone has any opinion on the topic?

[pryelluw]

IG is definitely ramping up features to compete. But I have a weird feeling that it's going to end up being a camel. Snapchat on the other hand, is being too selective with their advertising channels. They require ridiculously expensive contracts that reflect the way TV ads are sold. What really bothers me is that the stories are too short and I cant produce content and publish it there.

[elastic_church]

Instagram's stories have been evolving very quickly.

They've added the ability to tap on usernames written in the videos, to take you straight to their profile, or open up an in app browser to look at websites and catalogues, or link to the geotagged place.

It'll be a game of cat and mouse.

Snapchat users are still posting more on snapchat, and sharing subsets of what they posted on instagram. Instagram only users are using the stories on Instagram exclusively.

[renegadesensei]

Should I be experiencing FOMO over Snapchat? Is Snapchat one of those things you only get into if all of your friends are doing it? (like, say heroin for example)

[tqkxzugoaupvwqr]

There is nothing wrong with trying out Snapchat. Download the app.

As far as I know, there is no people discovery on Snapchat. To find people to add (so you can receive their snaps – or video messages), go on Instagram and check out user profiles. Snapchat users post their Snapchat usernames everywhere.

Familiarize yourself with the UI. It is quite confusing until you have a mental image of how the screens are linked so you know where you can swipe in which direction to get to the next screen.

From what I can see, Snapchat is dominated by teenagers. Everyone has an account, even if they don’t post, just to watch other people’s videos. The stuff is very mundane and gets boring fast if you are not actually friends with the people who post. There is a lot of posing and trying to look pretty. After a few weeks I deleted the app.

[incompatible]

I once read this article: https://www.buzzfeed.com/benrosen/how-to-snapchat-like-the-t...

which didn't make me feel that I was missing out on anything.

[majormajor]

If you don't have anyone else from your good friends using it, there's no point to have it yourself.

If you do, it can be a lot of fun and you don't have to worry about polluting your camera roll or your long-term social media footprint.

[ajkjk]

It is one of those things, but not like heroin is.

[ljk]

as another non-snapchat user, i feel it's like the quote "The only winning move is not to play"

[elastic_church]

bounce from Tinder to Snatchchat

[MrBra]

Heaviest app on my phone ever.

Yea I don't have the latest Nexus smartphone, but I am sure it's not coded as good as it could and should be.

[wapz]

Snapchat is terrible on Android. I'm surprised it got so popular (when FB had a real heavy Android app I feel like a lot of people were using the web interface instead).

[megablast]

> but I am sure it's not coded as good as it could and should be.

Nothing ever is, except for NASA's shuttle control systems.

[ffef]

Good for them

[bjshepard]

Why should we trust these numbers?

[slackoverflower]

Because they publicly filed for IPO today and released all these numbers.

[bookmarkacc]

If they lie to the SEC their IPO will not be so good