5 ms·

The reason that Facebook and Twitter receive this scrutiny is that information posted to them is public, persistent, viral and forced into many people's view by

The reason that Facebook and Twitter receive this scrutiny is that information posted to them is public, persistent, viral and forced into many people's view by feeds. I think SnapChat counteracts all these features. I was recently hanging out at some nightlife spots, casually talking to random millennials at bars and such and realized that nobody was using Facebook or Twitter. They were all using SnapChat, almost compulsively. I asked them why and they said it was because their mom was on Facebook (!public). They also liked that everything disappeared after 24 hours (!persistent) and it alerts you if people screenshot your posts (!persistent). They also liked the fact that you couldn't repost stuff, only show pictures that the app took and you only shared with your friends (!viral) and only had to look at their stuff if you actually wanted to (!feed). It didn't come in on a feed. I think Facebook and Twitter are going to be cleaned out soon except for self-promotion and commercial information. At this point I assume that Facebook is public too. People desperately want privacy. I think a rising trend in the industry is the notion of forgetting. People want services to forget. They want to live in the present and not have everything remembered about them forever. They also don't want to be bombarded by feeds since they are full of distraction, advertising and ideology. The only thing they are interested in posting to these public services is things that they want to share publicly, like self-promotion or commercial/job related stuff.

cm3 10y ago
Isn't snapchat video only?
- narrator 10y ago
  Snapchat is also pictures and you can do traditional text. Mainly you have this thing called a "story" that people can subscribe to that lasts for the last 24 hours and it's pictures and video and text that you send to it. I recently tried using snapchat with a few people. They get annoyed that they can only see your pictures for a few seconds and then can't view them again and text disappears after 24 hours.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- techthroway443 10y ago
  From wikipedia: Snapchat is primarily used for creating multimedia messages referred to as "snaps"; snaps can consist of a photo or a short video, and can be edited to include filters and effects, text captions, and drawings.
  - cm3 10y ago
    I've never seen Snapchat, but that description seems to contradict the sibling saying it can be text only too.
    - bluehazed 10y ago
      You can send text only messages on Snapchat.
    - milesokeefe 10y ago
      There is also text based chat and video/VOIP chat, neither of which persist without informing the other user.
      - cm3 10y ago
        Interesting. Snapchat sounds a lot more complex than I had envisioned from hearing about it.
        0x6c6f6c 10y ago
        For those who aren't upset with Snapchats goals broadening, it's a great utility for many different means of communication. Chat features and multimedia along with an expiration date on all content is something that many people can appreciate in a world of public social networks.
        Kadin 10y ago
        It also has a fairly sophisticated face recognition system (accessed, strangely, by long-pressing your face in a live video window, but only while using the rear-facing camera; it's almost like an Easter Egg but isn't) which it uses to do face swaps and other types of animations on top of video. I don't know if the app is designed to intentionally hide features to create some sort of "discovery" experience, but there's a lot more to it than is obvious at first glance.
partiallypro 10y ago
There's no privacy on SnapChat either, in terms of privacy from data collection. As soon as SnapChat is pushed to really monetize the platform, it will slowly start to implode. People I know don't usually post much on Facebook, or even Instagram...but those are their "public" personas and they will post things that improve their public image (usually.) They do sign into them, look at what people are doing and occasionally post. SnapChat is the "private" persona, so posts are going to be more varied. While Twitter has the opportunity to be an anonymous platform for some, which neither SnapChat or Facebook have, really. They are all different components to what people want with some audience cross over. I don't use SnapChat, mostly because the CEO killed off the 3rd party app for my platform of choice (Windows Mobile.)
spike021 10y ago
Technically you can still share a photo taken outside of Snapchat (on iOS at least). You just can't add it to your public timeline. It can only be sent to your friends/contacts list. But if you wind up doing select-all on the friends list, it pretty much works out the same way as sharing to the timeline view.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
> People want services to forget. They want to live in the present and not have everything remembered about them forever. This is a mindset I'm having hard time understanding. For me it's the opposite - I'd love to have everything I interact with a) persistent, and b) searchable by me. I dislike the idea of ephemerality, of stuff that happened going away, without a way to recollect them. Maybe I'm the weird kind who still has his SMS archives from 10 years ago somewhere on his computer...
- xemdetia 10y ago
  The mindset is that the services should forget, but if I want persistence it is up to me to remember. I have to same sort of archive of 20 years or so of computing but it's mine and not in custodianship by someone else and that's the distinction. Just because some random web service has a breach it doesn't mean that messages/thoughts/dreams/jokes I sent someone in confidence should be exposed to the world unless I permit it. It's closer to wanting to be able to archive every letter you receive in the post, not the post office keeping every letter and you having to rely on them for the safety of your messages. A lot of these services also keep changing the rules of inclusion to a community over time, where things were private they are now not private or people just need to restart and get going again in a new social group.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I see the distinction now. Yes, I guess I have the same attitude - I want ownership of my data. A way to keep it permanent (and searchable) for myself. Cloud services remembering stuff is mostly convenience, but in case of personal stuff (as in things posted on social networks), not something very desirable.
cgriswald 10y ago
> I was recently hanging out at some nightlife spots, casually talking to random millennials at bars and such and realized that nobody was using Facebook or Twitter. They were all using SnapChat, almost compulsively. (emphasis added) I am nearly 40 and don't want my nightlife posted on Facebook where my ex-wife, parents, child, or potential employers might see it, either. Why do you expect millennials to behave differently? I can't speak for all millennials, but I am currently attending university and have many millennial friends and contacts. Almost to a person, they all have Facebook. The only two people I can think of that don't are a 30-year-old and a guy in his 50's who is a conspiracy theorist. Facebook is used as a way to add soft social contacts as well as to coordinate and interact with a larger group of people. Facebook is the "public" social face, with things like Snapchat offering a more private face. And I don't think that difference is specific to millennials. My 50-something ex-girlfriend and my 23-year-old current girlfriend use these services almost identically, as do I.

cm3 10y ago

Isn't snapchat video only?

narrator 10y ago
Snapchat is also pictures and you can do traditional text. Mainly you have this thing called a "story" that people can subscribe to that lasts for the last 24 hours and it's pictures and video and text that you send to it. I recently tried using snapchat with a few people. They get annoyed that they can only see your pictures for a few seconds and then can't view them again and text disappears after 24 hours.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
techthroway443 10y ago
From wikipedia: Snapchat is primarily used for creating multimedia messages referred to as "snaps"; snaps can consist of a photo or a short video, and can be edited to include filters and effects, text captions, and drawings.
- cm3 10y ago
  I've never seen Snapchat, but that description seems to contradict the sibling saying it can be text only too.
  - bluehazed 10y ago
    You can send text only messages on Snapchat.
  - milesokeefe 10y ago
    There is also text based chat and video/VOIP chat, neither of which persist without informing the other user.
    - cm3 10y ago
      Interesting. Snapchat sounds a lot more complex than I had envisioned from hearing about it.
      - 0x6c6f6c 10y ago
        For those who aren't upset with Snapchats goals broadening, it's a great utility for many different means of communication. Chat features and multimedia along with an expiration date on all content is something that many people can appreciate in a world of public social networks.
      - Kadin 10y ago
        It also has a fairly sophisticated face recognition system (accessed, strangely, by long-pressing your face in a live video window, but only while using the rear-facing camera; it's almost like an Easter Egg but isn't) which it uses to do face swaps and other types of animations on top of video. I don't know if the app is designed to intentionally hide features to create some sort of "discovery" experience, but there's a lot more to it than is obvious at first glance.

partiallypro 10y ago

There's no privacy on SnapChat either, in terms of privacy from data collection. As soon as SnapChat is pushed to really monetize the platform, it will slowly start to implode. People I know don't usually post much on Facebook, or even Instagram...but those are their "public" personas and they will post things that improve their public image (usually.) They do sign into them, look at what people are doing and occasionally post. SnapChat is the "private" persona, so posts are going to be more varied. While Twitter has the opportunity to be an anonymous platform for some, which neither SnapChat or Facebook have, really. They are all different components to what people want with some audience cross over. I don't use SnapChat, mostly because the CEO killed off the 3rd party app for my platform of choice (Windows Mobile.)

spike021 10y ago

Technically you can still share a photo taken outside of Snapchat (on iOS at least). You just can't add it to your public timeline. It can only be sent to your friends/contacts list. But if you wind up doing select-all on the friends list, it pretty much works out the same way as sharing to the timeline view.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> People want services to forget. They want to live in the present and not have everything remembered about them forever. This is a mindset I'm having hard time understanding. For me it's the opposite - I'd love to have everything I interact with a) persistent, and b) searchable by me. I dislike the idea of ephemerality, of stuff that happened going away, without a way to recollect them. Maybe I'm the weird kind who still has his SMS archives from 10 years ago somewhere on his computer...

xemdetia 10y ago
The mindset is that the services should forget, but if I want persistence it is up to me to remember. I have to same sort of archive of 20 years or so of computing but it's mine and not in custodianship by someone else and that's the distinction. Just because some random web service has a breach it doesn't mean that messages/thoughts/dreams/jokes I sent someone in confidence should be exposed to the world unless I permit it. It's closer to wanting to be able to archive every letter you receive in the post, not the post office keeping every letter and you having to rely on them for the safety of your messages. A lot of these services also keep changing the rules of inclusion to a community over time, where things were private they are now not private or people just need to restart and get going again in a new social group.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I see the distinction now. Yes, I guess I have the same attitude - I want ownership of my data. A way to keep it permanent (and searchable) for myself. Cloud services remembering stuff is mostly convenience, but in case of personal stuff (as in things posted on social networks), not something very desirable.

cgriswald 10y ago

> I was recently hanging out at some nightlife spots, casually talking to random millennials at bars and such and realized that nobody was using Facebook or Twitter. They were all using SnapChat, almost compulsively. (emphasis added) I am nearly 40 and don't want my nightlife posted on Facebook where my ex-wife, parents, child, or potential employers might see it, either. Why do you expect millennials to behave differently? I can't speak for all millennials, but I am currently attending university and have many millennial friends and contacts. Almost to a person, they all have Facebook. The only two people I can think of that don't are a 30-year-old and a guy in his 50's who is a conspiracy theorist. Facebook is used as a way to add soft social contacts as well as to coordinate and interact with a larger group of people. Facebook is the "public" social face, with things like Snapchat offering a more private face. And I don't think that difference is specific to millennials. My 50-something ex-girlfriend and my 23-year-old current girlfriend use these services almost identically, as do I.