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Facebook has lost ground for genuine social interaction. Facebook is more serious stuff such as life announcements for new job, grad/college acceptance, engagem

Facebook has lost ground for genuine social interaction. Facebook is more serious stuff such as life announcements for new job, grad/college acceptance, engagement to their significant other, uploading a vacation photo as their profile pic in Grand Canyon as a DSLR, etc.. Everything feels so "official" and "serious" Snapchat is low-stakes and more playful for throw-away stuff in people's day-to-day life.

richardknop 9y ago
None of my extended friends around the world (late twenties so we are not that old) nor my family use Snapchat. So in my opinion Snapchat is so niche and has such narrow group of users it will never replace what Facebook used to be.
- dannyw 9y ago
  People grow in age. The audience that is using Snapchat now (I talk to a dozen friends on Snapchat) are going to keep using Snapchat (I haven’t seen any age based dropoff), and younger people start using Snapchat. I don’t even have some fairly close friends on FB!
  - richardknop 9y ago
    Sure but I doubt it. For example after initial students on college campuses who started using Facebook, it has spread to older generations and people in 30s, 40s even 50s now use Facebook. With Snapchat I don't see such trend. It has no website, only a confusing mobile app with horrid UX that most people can't figure out and is mostly used for adding pig noses and cat ears to pictures by teenagers.
    - heedlessly2 9y ago
      if Snapchat had a website, then users could screenshot photos/conversations without notifying the other person. That's exactly why they don't have one.
- heedlessly2 9y ago
  i don't think its a bad thing that Snapchat will replace Facebook. People don't want an imitator. The whole point of Facebook is to "record personal history". The whole point of Snapchat is to maintain "privacy". It fills a void that Facebook was never meant to do nor intends. Before someone says "you can still screenshot" on Snapchat. While that is true, the platform strongly discourages it and millions of users do not screenshot for every single photo. Whereas FB, is default "save" The way a platform facilitates interaction is very important.
  - richardknop 9y ago
    I think people want to keep personal history in most cases. Like all normal conversations with friends or family, you would want to keep history of it so you can go look up things in the future. Sending pictures that disappear and are not recorded is a valid use case but it's a very narrow one in my opinion. It might be useful for dating or "flirting" conversations so maybe 10% of human interaction. Therefor I think the way Snapchat works it will never become mainstream like Facebook did because it doesn't work well for normal interaction between friends & family which is 90% of most peoples' social interaction.
    - meebs 9y ago
      > Therefor I think the way Snapchat works it will never become mainstream like Facebook did because it doesn't work well for normal interaction between friends & family which is 90% of most peoples' social interaction. I'd caution against using your personal experience to judge the medium's validity. Adolescents & young adults have plenty of non-sexual conversations on Snapchat. Sometimes you don't need it to be recorded not because you want privacy, but because it's unnecessary. Further, in the event you do want to save a picture you can. :)
    - heedlessly2 9y ago
      >Snapchat works it will never become mainstream like Facebook Snapchat is already mainstream, it has 178 million daily active users. Tons of celebrities use it too. It's not some unknown app. Facebook is still more popular by a large margin. However, that doesn't deny Snapchat being labeled "mainstream". >I think people want to keep personal history in most cases. Like all normal conversations with friends or family, you would want to keep history of it so you can go look up things in the future. Again, Facebook and Snapchat are two different apps. Snapchat was never meant to become a Facebook copy-cat. They both fulfill two different purposes. Your comment is similar to watching a horror film and complaining that it wasn't a comedy film and explaining how horror films do poorly compared to comedies. They are not mutually exclusive.

richardknop 9y ago

None of my extended friends around the world (late twenties so we are not that old) nor my family use Snapchat. So in my opinion Snapchat is so niche and has such narrow group of users it will never replace what Facebook used to be.

dannyw 9y ago
People grow in age. The audience that is using Snapchat now (I talk to a dozen friends on Snapchat) are going to keep using Snapchat (I haven’t seen any age based dropoff), and younger people start using Snapchat. I don’t even have some fairly close friends on FB!
- richardknop 9y ago
  Sure but I doubt it. For example after initial students on college campuses who started using Facebook, it has spread to older generations and people in 30s, 40s even 50s now use Facebook. With Snapchat I don't see such trend. It has no website, only a confusing mobile app with horrid UX that most people can't figure out and is mostly used for adding pig noses and cat ears to pictures by teenagers.
  - heedlessly2 9y ago
    if Snapchat had a website, then users could screenshot photos/conversations without notifying the other person. That's exactly why they don't have one.
heedlessly2 9y ago
i don't think its a bad thing that Snapchat will replace Facebook. People don't want an imitator. The whole point of Facebook is to "record personal history". The whole point of Snapchat is to maintain "privacy". It fills a void that Facebook was never meant to do nor intends. Before someone says "you can still screenshot" on Snapchat. While that is true, the platform strongly discourages it and millions of users do not screenshot for every single photo. Whereas FB, is default "save" The way a platform facilitates interaction is very important.
- richardknop 9y ago
  I think people want to keep personal history in most cases. Like all normal conversations with friends or family, you would want to keep history of it so you can go look up things in the future. Sending pictures that disappear and are not recorded is a valid use case but it's a very narrow one in my opinion. It might be useful for dating or "flirting" conversations so maybe 10% of human interaction. Therefor I think the way Snapchat works it will never become mainstream like Facebook did because it doesn't work well for normal interaction between friends & family which is 90% of most peoples' social interaction.
  - meebs 9y ago
    > Therefor I think the way Snapchat works it will never become mainstream like Facebook did because it doesn't work well for normal interaction between friends & family which is 90% of most peoples' social interaction. I'd caution against using your personal experience to judge the medium's validity. Adolescents & young adults have plenty of non-sexual conversations on Snapchat. Sometimes you don't need it to be recorded not because you want privacy, but because it's unnecessary. Further, in the event you do want to save a picture you can. :)
  - heedlessly2 9y ago
    >Snapchat works it will never become mainstream like Facebook Snapchat is already mainstream, it has 178 million daily active users. Tons of celebrities use it too. It's not some unknown app. Facebook is still more popular by a large margin. However, that doesn't deny Snapchat being labeled "mainstream". >I think people want to keep personal history in most cases. Like all normal conversations with friends or family, you would want to keep history of it so you can go look up things in the future. Again, Facebook and Snapchat are two different apps. Snapchat was never meant to become a Facebook copy-cat. They both fulfill two different purposes. Your comment is similar to watching a horror film and complaining that it wasn't a comedy film and explaining how horror films do poorly compared to comedies. They are not mutually exclusive.