4 ms·

No, let's compare it to nonsense like SnapChat being valued at $16 billion. Pets.com generated value, PetSmart's $400+ million a year profit can attest to that

No, let's compare it to nonsense like SnapChat being valued at $16 billion. Pets.com generated value, PetSmart's $400+ million a year profit can attest to that market. Their issue was horrendous mismanagement of funds, and shipping stuff for more than it was selling. The biggest issue with companies then was going public.

tempestn 10y ago
I think writing off SnapChat as "nonsense" might be unwise. I'm 35 and even I enjoy sending snaps back and forth with my wife. (And I'm talking G-rated stuff; look what the kid just did, that kind of thing.) And I'm not even really the target demographic. It's a new communication paradigm, much like Twitter was. (A completely different paradigm, but similarly new.) It will likely have similar challenges. But it isn't just some "nonsense".
- overcast 10y ago
  Why don't you just send it as a text message instead of having your child's moment deleted?
  - tempestn 10y ago
    We send texts too - Google Hangouts actually - and take plenty of non-snap pictures, but you don't need to save everything in life. When you're hanging out with someone in person you're not recording every moment. Snapchat is kind of like a virtual version of that.
  - darawk 10y ago
    That's a hard question to answer precisely, but one I think about often. I use snapchat and text and gchat extensively, and I often wonder what it is about snapchat that makes it more convenient. As best I can tell it's two things: 1. The ephemerality makes me feel less self-conscious about the quality of the picture. It's going away momentarily, never to be seen again, so all I care about is conveying what is happening in the moment, not getting the perfect shot. 2. It's fast. Snapchat sacrifices image quality for speed to some extent, and the interface is faster and more fluid, particularly for broadcasting a snap to multiple people. These things combine to make sending snaps feel very conversational. When I think of sending an image by text it feels like a hassle, and i'll only do it if it's a picture I want someone to have for more than 10 seconds. I'm not sure if this explanation totally conveys my meaning, but in using it, it is quite clear to me that there is indeed something categorically different between snapchat and MMS texting, though it is admittedly somewhat hard to pin down what that is.
    - overcast 10y ago
      I get it, they are disposable pics. I'm in the camp that anything I take time to snap a picture of, isn't just some disposable moment that I want a super compressed version of. Far too much junk, overly compressed, and overly filtered pics as it is.
      - darawk 10y ago
        Ya, but to me, that is exactly the perspective taken by snapchat. It allows you to capture moments you want to convey to people in a throwaway sense, but frees you from keeping them around mucking up your digital environment for eternity. It allows you to express yourself via images in a fundamentally different way. To simply photograph/record the thing happening in front of you because it was funny or amusing for a second, but not have to ask yourself the question "is this worth preserving forever?". It turns a snap into the equivalent of throwaway, idle verbal conversation. Texts/instagram are the written letters of the digital age. Careful, considered (and if not, people think you're an idiot and look down on you). Snaps are in-person chatter. They don't have to be super meaningful or well composed, just the digital equivalent of "how about this weather we're having".
  - icambron 10y ago
    I don't know the answer to your question, but I do want to point out that there's something a little jarring about positing that its valuation is nonsense and wondering why its users find it valuable in the same thread. I don't get Snapchat either, but maybe that means I shouldn't poopoo it?
  - renlo 10y ago
    This is anecdotal but half of the time I've sent one it was never received by the other party. And, it didn't tell me it wasn't received, the other person just didn't receive it. I'm not sure if this is because it's going across carriers, across OSes (android to ios), or some other factors I'm not aware of. Snapchat just works.
  - atom-morgan 10y ago
    I would say one-to-one "snaps" are relatively rare. People are usually blasting it off to at least a few people. Through text that's a lot more taps. If it's a group text, now you've probably annoyed a few people.
    - ido 10y ago
      I know it's not popular in the us, but it sounds like a use case covered by whatsapp. I wonder if it's mostly just network effect? Here pretty much everyone already has whatsapp so you just use that instead of registering/installing a new service/app.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  The "nonsense" part is that SnapChat is valued at 16 billion. It's a nice service but certainly not worth that much money.
collyw 10y ago
I was tempted to upvote you, as I also think Snapchat is nonsense. But I have discussed Snapchat with the youngsters at my work. They all "get it" in a way that I don't seem to. And we use it for advertising, and it brings in revenue (our target market is aged 18-25).
- overcast 10y ago
  The 18-25 group has proven app after app, that they have zero loyalty, and are the most likely to jump ship to the next great thing. I don't think there is really much to "get" about SnapChat, other than that it's currently the hot app to use. Again, this was a response to OP, who stated companies like Pets.com offered no value, when clearly they did. Their problem was horrible management.

tempestn 10y ago

I think writing off SnapChat as "nonsense" might be unwise. I'm 35 and even I enjoy sending snaps back and forth with my wife. (And I'm talking G-rated stuff; look what the kid just did, that kind of thing.) And I'm not even really the target demographic. It's a new communication paradigm, much like Twitter was. (A completely different paradigm, but similarly new.) It will likely have similar challenges. But it isn't just some "nonsense".

overcast 10y ago
Why don't you just send it as a text message instead of having your child's moment deleted?
- tempestn 10y ago
  We send texts too - Google Hangouts actually - and take plenty of non-snap pictures, but you don't need to save everything in life. When you're hanging out with someone in person you're not recording every moment. Snapchat is kind of like a virtual version of that.
- darawk 10y ago
  That's a hard question to answer precisely, but one I think about often. I use snapchat and text and gchat extensively, and I often wonder what it is about snapchat that makes it more convenient. As best I can tell it's two things: 1. The ephemerality makes me feel less self-conscious about the quality of the picture. It's going away momentarily, never to be seen again, so all I care about is conveying what is happening in the moment, not getting the perfect shot. 2. It's fast. Snapchat sacrifices image quality for speed to some extent, and the interface is faster and more fluid, particularly for broadcasting a snap to multiple people. These things combine to make sending snaps feel very conversational. When I think of sending an image by text it feels like a hassle, and i'll only do it if it's a picture I want someone to have for more than 10 seconds. I'm not sure if this explanation totally conveys my meaning, but in using it, it is quite clear to me that there is indeed something categorically different between snapchat and MMS texting, though it is admittedly somewhat hard to pin down what that is.
  - overcast 10y ago
    I get it, they are disposable pics. I'm in the camp that anything I take time to snap a picture of, isn't just some disposable moment that I want a super compressed version of. Far too much junk, overly compressed, and overly filtered pics as it is.
    - darawk 10y ago
      Ya, but to me, that is exactly the perspective taken by snapchat. It allows you to capture moments you want to convey to people in a throwaway sense, but frees you from keeping them around mucking up your digital environment for eternity. It allows you to express yourself via images in a fundamentally different way. To simply photograph/record the thing happening in front of you because it was funny or amusing for a second, but not have to ask yourself the question "is this worth preserving forever?". It turns a snap into the equivalent of throwaway, idle verbal conversation. Texts/instagram are the written letters of the digital age. Careful, considered (and if not, people think you're an idiot and look down on you). Snaps are in-person chatter. They don't have to be super meaningful or well composed, just the digital equivalent of "how about this weather we're having".
- icambron 10y ago
  I don't know the answer to your question, but I do want to point out that there's something a little jarring about positing that its valuation is nonsense and wondering why its users find it valuable in the same thread. I don't get Snapchat either, but maybe that means I shouldn't poopoo it?
- renlo 10y ago
  This is anecdotal but half of the time I've sent one it was never received by the other party. And, it didn't tell me it wasn't received, the other person just didn't receive it. I'm not sure if this is because it's going across carriers, across OSes (android to ios), or some other factors I'm not aware of. Snapchat just works.
- atom-morgan 10y ago
  I would say one-to-one "snaps" are relatively rare. People are usually blasting it off to at least a few people. Through text that's a lot more taps. If it's a group text, now you've probably annoyed a few people.
  - ido 10y ago
    I know it's not popular in the us, but it sounds like a use case covered by whatsapp. I wonder if it's mostly just network effect? Here pretty much everyone already has whatsapp so you just use that instead of registering/installing a new service/app.
maxxxxx 10y ago
The "nonsense" part is that SnapChat is valued at 16 billion. It's a nice service but certainly not worth that much money.

collyw 10y ago

I was tempted to upvote you, as I also think Snapchat is nonsense. But I have discussed Snapchat with the youngsters at my work. They all "get it" in a way that I don't seem to. And we use it for advertising, and it brings in revenue (our target market is aged 18-25).

overcast 10y ago
The 18-25 group has proven app after app, that they have zero loyalty, and are the most likely to jump ship to the next great thing. I don't think there is really much to "get" about SnapChat, other than that it's currently the hot app to use. Again, this was a response to OP, who stated companies like Pets.com offered no value, when clearly they did. Their problem was horrible management.