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The SNAP thesis I like the best is - "Twitter-like growth with FB ARPU". The monetization potential of this company is massive (geofilters, sponsored content,
by probe 10y ago
The SNAP thesis I like the best is - "Twitter-like growth with FB ARPU".
The monetization potential of this company is massive (geofilters, sponsored content, hardware with spectacles, etc.) and there's no direct comp for that. Pokemon Go showed us the bleeding of digital to physical, and Snap has the potential to be the first company to unlock value from it (ex. geofilters). Plus you can view SNAP as a call option on AR and their potential to be the main camera (when something exciting happens, which app do you open first? For at least in my social circle its by far Snapchat not the Camera app/twitter/etc).
That being said, they face a massive threat from Instagram Stories and now WhatsApp Stories. Though a caveat - while their DAU growth has slowed, it's actually been in international markets primarily (and I think wrongly they don't care enough about dealing with low-bandwith, "unexciting" users). If they can keep a healthy growth in US to escape the FB threat they can afford to lose internationally.
Their first 1-2 earning report will be very revealing for SNAP b/c the expectations have been set and I'm looking for them to do the following:
1) Raise ARPU at similar rates
2) Maintain healthy DAU growth in the US
3) Create new product innovation around AR/Spectacles/Lenses.
If they don't hit at least one of those goals (and preferably two or all three), than I would be very concerned for them.
- moolcool 10y ago>Pokemon Go showed us the bleeding of digital to physical It also showed how quickly a popular phenomenon can loose cultural relevance. >when something exciting happens, which app do you open first? One that doesn't automatically delete the photo I took of the exciting thing by default
- probe 10y agoI'd argue it was poor/slow execution that led Pokemon Go to lose cultural relevance. If they had introduced more pokemon, ability to trade/battle, etc. they would still be highly relevant and a behemoth today. When I post to Stories I also post to "Memories" so everything is saved on the app. Plus I usually go back to snapchat and save pictures from my story manually if I want to have it saved locally. Most people I know do the same.
- funnyfacts365 10y agoI would also say a camera that uses it's full resolution to take the photo instead of just taking a screenshot... For a camera company, they sure do have a shitty camera/product
- anonu 10y agoI like the thesis summary. Let's be honest WhatsApp "Status" is terrible. I've checked it daily since I got it on my phone and have only seen 1 person post on it. Instagram Stories is just OK. Snapchat has, so far, cornered the market in this particular "storytelling" niche. There's also a more natural integration with how ads are injected into the experience. Snap works carefully with ad buyers to make sure that the ads are engaging and flow with the rest of the product. That's an important differentiator.
- angryasian 10y agoI don't buy that sponsored content or hardware are that exciting in terms of monetization potential. Geofilters are interesting new ad product, but as an ad product they are not really that exciting as you lose virality(ephemeral) and sharing. They are limited to your immediate social network. >it's actually been in international markets primarily I'd like to know where you read this. I'd still be concerned because they've pretty much saturated the millenial market at this point. They need to grow in other demographics or internationally.
- probe 10y agoMy bad, when I say geofilters I mean filters in a broader sense (like the Taco Bell filter which was viewed 224 million times)[1]. You can see the international DAU numbers in the S-1, but TC had a good summary and graphs: https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/02/snap-s1-numbers/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/02/snap-s1-numbers/ [1] http://www.adweek.com/digital/taco-bells-cinco-de-mayo-snapchat-lens-was-viewed-224-million-times-171390/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/taco-bells-cinco-de-mayo-snapc...
- jonknee 10y ago> "Twitter-like growth with FB ARPU" Isn't Twitter's big problem that they stopped growing? Much like Snap it appears if the most recent trend holds. TWTR had 231m MAU at the time of its IPO compared to 313m currently (3.5 years later). They hit a roadblock at the end of 2014 and have not recovered. https://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly... Compare that with Facebook who despite covering a meaningful percentage of humans is still growing: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly... The multi-billion dollar question is which path Snap takes...
- squeaky-clean 10y ago> Pokemon Go showed us the bleeding of digital to physical Niantic had another game (Ingress) that Pokemon Go is pretty much a copy-paste of. Compared to P:GO, Ingress was/is not very successful. I think this only shows us how desperate people still were for a real-life Pokemon game (and also one that didn't require buying gaming specific hardware). They put up with a terribly unstable app with few features that got less stable and removed more and more features over time.
- Trundle 10y agoAlso everyone I encountered when I was playing had AR turned off. It was a fad itself within the fad of pokemon go. Fun for the first like 5 catches and then an annoyance/battery drain.
- 1_2__3 10y agoYou used a fad (Pokémon Go) to make a case for longevity. Not sure that's going to convince anyone.