5 ms·

What is Snapchat, now that Story sharing has stopped growing?

26 points by LearnerHerzog 9y ago

tw1010 9y ago
I just have this feeling a lot of anti-snapchat news or comments are either biased as a function of investing in competing companies, or is a consequence of having their head way too far up the adult, linkedin, world to know what is really going on with the people that use these apps. The fact is that the vast vast vast majority of young people look way down on facebook, and only use it because of network effect hooks (which have proven to be surprisingly robust, but I don't have much faith in long-term), whereas snapchat is totally considered cool and fun to use. This sign should be far more than enough, to anyone who knows the history of these services, to know how all this will turn out long-term.
- aetherson 9y ago
  If teens love Snapchat and are loyal to it beyond their teenager years (ie, what it would take for this to turn out well long-term), why aren't their user numbers growing? Each year, they should take in another cohort of new smartphone users and hold onto their cohort of existing former-teens. (And, to clear myself of the charge that I am invested in other platforms: I have neither a financial investment in, nor am I a user of, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or any broadly similar product. I do use Whatsapp, very minimally.)
  - adjkant 9y ago
    Snapchat is primarily used in the US, Canada, etc. In the US, there are 23.8M children aged 12-17. If we average it out and assume that every year when a kid turns 13 they start using Snapchat, that's only 4M users a year. Given their growth of users is higher per quarter than that, they very well could be growing from exactly this source. Just because they aren't growing at the same rate doesn't mean they aren't growing. In fact, if we expect the model you suggested, it seems that their growth rate will continue to slow as they accumulate more users but the birth rate of wealthy countries (primary users of Snapchat) stays at the levels expected. Even though the birth rate is increasing, I don't think it will as much as the percentage of users of Snapchat increases. https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp
- hbosch 9y ago
  Instagram has caught way up to Snapchat with kids IMO. Millennials aren't looking down on Instagram the same way they look down on Facebook, although I do see the potential as long as Instagram keeps messing around with the timelines and practicing the crude art of withholding likes and comments from users in order to get them to check back more often. One thing I really, really like about what Snapchat is trying to do is go against what makes them money in order to make their user base happier. Separating Friends and Discover is bad for cash but good for customer experience. If they can keep my friends' snaps and advertisers' snaps entirely separated I would happily start snapping more. As it is, I can't watch my friends' stories on either app without being forced through ads and I find it incredibly annoying. The answer to this article's headline is, hopefully, "a fun place where I can share photos with my friends and not see an ad."
  - electricslpnsld 9y ago
    > Instagram has caught way up to Snapchat with kids IMO. Millennials aren't looking down on Instagram the same way they look down on Facebook I'd hesitate to call Millennials 'kids' at this point. Hell, Millennial poster-person extraordinaire Lena Dunham is in her 30s.
  - oneweekwonder 9y ago
    > ... with kids IMO. > Millennials aren't looking down ... pst, youngest millennials 18 now days[0], oldest 37. So some of them get upset to get lumped with generation z[1] as kids. Other old enough to not care anymore. btw, get of my lawn. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z
- this_user 9y ago
  Snapchat is competing with Instagram, not FB. And while IG belongs to FB, I don't think most people see it that way. And the numbers for both services seem to confirm that IG is eating Snap's lunch. With limited income and stalled user growth, they risk finding themselves in a worse situation than Twitter. The latter at least doesn't have FB coming after them.
  - adjkant 9y ago
    I still don't understand why people see them as mutually exclusive apps. While stories is in competition, the rest of both apps, the primary use of both, are completely different in practice. Instagram has taken over the role of Facebook for young people, and Snapchat is the messaging service. Most high schoolers I know through younger siblings of friends, etc, use both. Stories still lean Snapchat for those younger ones. YMMV.
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  Anything limited to a generation doesn't last long, unless everyone of the same age in subsequent generations also pick it up. At some point the generation using Snapchat will realize that all the experiences they've been sharing have actually been going into the trash. Snapchat will then either become Instagram, or pivot, or die.
- seanhunter 9y ago
  In the UK at least the teens I know consider snapchat uncool and hard to use; they prefer to use Instagram. When I travel to India and the far East (Indonesia and the Philippines most recently) people seem to be all about WhatsApp. Obviously a small sample and the plural of anecdote isn't data, but you don't quote sources for your "vast vast vast majority of young people" either.
  - ajross 9y ago
    Which is to say: network effects are king and people will use what their social contacts already use in essentially all cases. I think that argues strongly against Snapchat as a growth bet, given the numbers in the article.
    - mrisoli 9y ago
      Yes, I really like Snapchat's app, it takes some time getting used to the UI but I found the heat map to be a killer feature, pound for pound I find it better than Instagram(still, I think they would benefit by copying Instagram rolling non-ephemeral pictures feed). However, I don't use Snapchat because none of my friends do, I've met some Americans traveling who use it and that is all, I think a lot of people don't even know what Snapchat is while everyone knows what Instagram is even if they don't use it, that is all because of network effects.
- aylmao 9y ago
  I keep hearing this argument but with nothing more than anecdotal evidence. I'm curios to know if there's any survey data backing this up (and considering also international markets, perhaps).
dawhizkid 9y ago
They will announce a cryptocurrency by EOY.
OoTheNigerian 9y ago
I have a feeling that if SnapChat allows sharing Od urls outside of the app (profile, stories etc) it will experience growth. No idea why it isn't that way today.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- adjkant 9y ago
  There's nothing on a Snapchat profile really to share, as it should be. Stories are for friends, not public consumption. What content is actually needed to be seen outside of Snapchat?
  - OoTheNigerian 9y ago
    It should be left to people to decide how public they want their stories to be.
    - nojvek 9y ago
      That’s not why people join Snapchat. It goes poof after 24 hours. You want the public to see it. Put it on your story and they can see it. Otherwise save to your “memory” and have it long term for your own public consumption. If they start going to be like Facebook and Twitter. I’ll immediately stop using it and i’m sure millions others will too.
    - adjkant 9y ago
      If you want to post at a more public and linkable level, there are many other services and nothing stopping you. That feature would do nothing for the current users of Snapchat and would really be against the purpose and spirit of the format. As mentioned, they would lose millions of users over it I am sure.
everdev 9y ago
What it always was: something in-between Facebook and Instagram. It's not the giant killer the founders thought it would be or the bust that others expected. Just a multi-billion dollar content (not camera) company with tons of young eyeballs.
bittermang 9y ago
Snapchat is and always has been a way for me to connect with my drug dealer, and trade nudes with open minded individuals in my social circles. Because of this, I have been utterly fascinated by Snapchat's continued existence, partnerships with major media brands, and being publicly traded. It boggles my mind that the app I use to buy weed and see titty has such a large footprint. It always feels like reality will catch up to Snapchat, and the ecosystem will come crashing down once everyone else realizes the Emperor is not wearing any clothes, and he's using the app to send pictures of his unclothed behind to everyone else.
- jdtang13 9y ago
  You really think that the many people who use Snapchat are all using it exactly the way you do?
  - razster 9y ago
    I use it to show my circle of friends what projects I'm working on and to bug friends and family members.
  - bittermang 9y ago
    Do you? Does anyone? We sit on high and talk about the kids and perceptions of cool. But the elephant in the room is never discussing what people are actually doing with the app. And to me, that is where the divide comes in. There is the Snapchat that is presented, the stories tab, and Snapcode links in Pepsi commercials. Then there is the Snapchat that is, how people are actually using it out in the wild.
    - jdtang13 9y ago
      I think it's much better to just ask a few 14-19 year olds how they use Snapchat, and what kind of messages they like to send and receive, rather than idly speculate.
      - ABCLAW 9y ago
wand3r 9y ago
> What is snapchat? The chief product architects of Instagram
adjkant 9y ago
What it's always been - a messaging app with pictures / videos / fun tools like filters, lenses, bitmojis (honestly my favorite and most useful part of Snapchat) that has stories for when I want to share with everyone. I feel like this is media analysis grasping at straws, just like they did when Facebook made a huge deal out of copying stories and having more users. Fast forward a year, Snapchat is still here and as far as we know just as used by their user base, though growing less than before.
dang 9y ago
This article is piggy-backing on the original source discussed yesterday here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16107183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16107183. Submitters: it'd be good if you'd take a minute to do some due diligence on articles like this before submitting them. The HN guidelines ask for original sources (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and this is the opposite.

26 points by LearnerHerzog 9y ago

I just have this feeling a lot of anti-snapchat news or comments are either biased as a function of investing in competing companies, or is a consequence of having their head way too far up the adult, linkedin, world to know what is really going on with the people that use these apps. The fact is that the vast vast vast majority of young people look way down on facebook, and only use it because of network effect hooks (which have proven to be surprisingly robust, but I don't have much faith in long-term), whereas snapchat is totally considered cool and fun to use. This sign should be far more than enough, to anyone who knows the history of these services, to know how all this will turn out long-term.

aetherson 9y ago
If teens love Snapchat and are loyal to it beyond their teenager years (ie, what it would take for this to turn out well long-term), why aren't their user numbers growing? Each year, they should take in another cohort of new smartphone users and hold onto their cohort of existing former-teens. (And, to clear myself of the charge that I am invested in other platforms: I have neither a financial investment in, nor am I a user of, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or any broadly similar product. I do use Whatsapp, very minimally.)
- adjkant 9y ago
  Snapchat is primarily used in the US, Canada, etc. In the US, there are 23.8M children aged 12-17. If we average it out and assume that every year when a kid turns 13 they start using Snapchat, that's only 4M users a year. Given their growth of users is higher per quarter than that, they very well could be growing from exactly this source. Just because they aren't growing at the same rate doesn't mean they aren't growing. In fact, if we expect the model you suggested, it seems that their growth rate will continue to slow as they accumulate more users but the birth rate of wealthy countries (primary users of Snapchat) stays at the levels expected. Even though the birth rate is increasing, I don't think it will as much as the percentage of users of Snapchat increases. https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp
hbosch 9y ago
Instagram has caught way up to Snapchat with kids IMO. Millennials aren't looking down on Instagram the same way they look down on Facebook, although I do see the potential as long as Instagram keeps messing around with the timelines and practicing the crude art of withholding likes and comments from users in order to get them to check back more often. One thing I really, really like about what Snapchat is trying to do is go against what makes them money in order to make their user base happier. Separating Friends and Discover is bad for cash but good for customer experience. If they can keep my friends' snaps and advertisers' snaps entirely separated I would happily start snapping more. As it is, I can't watch my friends' stories on either app without being forced through ads and I find it incredibly annoying. The answer to this article's headline is, hopefully, "a fun place where I can share photos with my friends and not see an ad."
- electricslpnsld 9y ago
  > Instagram has caught way up to Snapchat with kids IMO. Millennials aren't looking down on Instagram the same way they look down on Facebook I'd hesitate to call Millennials 'kids' at this point. Hell, Millennial poster-person extraordinaire Lena Dunham is in her 30s.
- oneweekwonder 9y ago
  > ... with kids IMO. > Millennials aren't looking down ... pst, youngest millennials 18 now days[0], oldest 37. So some of them get upset to get lumped with generation z[1] as kids. Other old enough to not care anymore. btw, get of my lawn. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z
this_user 9y ago
Snapchat is competing with Instagram, not FB. And while IG belongs to FB, I don't think most people see it that way. And the numbers for both services seem to confirm that IG is eating Snap's lunch. With limited income and stalled user growth, they risk finding themselves in a worse situation than Twitter. The latter at least doesn't have FB coming after them.
- adjkant 9y ago
  I still don't understand why people see them as mutually exclusive apps. While stories is in competition, the rest of both apps, the primary use of both, are completely different in practice. Instagram has taken over the role of Facebook for young people, and Snapchat is the messaging service. Most high schoolers I know through younger siblings of friends, etc, use both. Stories still lean Snapchat for those younger ones. YMMV.
peterwwillis 9y ago
Anything limited to a generation doesn't last long, unless everyone of the same age in subsequent generations also pick it up. At some point the generation using Snapchat will realize that all the experiences they've been sharing have actually been going into the trash. Snapchat will then either become Instagram, or pivot, or die.
seanhunter 9y ago
In the UK at least the teens I know consider snapchat uncool and hard to use; they prefer to use Instagram. When I travel to India and the far East (Indonesia and the Philippines most recently) people seem to be all about WhatsApp. Obviously a small sample and the plural of anecdote isn't data, but you don't quote sources for your "vast vast vast majority of young people" either.
- ajross 9y ago
  Which is to say: network effects are king and people will use what their social contacts already use in essentially all cases. I think that argues strongly against Snapchat as a growth bet, given the numbers in the article.
  - mrisoli 9y ago
    Yes, I really like Snapchat's app, it takes some time getting used to the UI but I found the heat map to be a killer feature, pound for pound I find it better than Instagram(still, I think they would benefit by copying Instagram rolling non-ephemeral pictures feed). However, I don't use Snapchat because none of my friends do, I've met some Americans traveling who use it and that is all, I think a lot of people don't even know what Snapchat is while everyone knows what Instagram is even if they don't use it, that is all because of network effects.
aylmao 9y ago
I keep hearing this argument but with nothing more than anecdotal evidence. I'm curios to know if there's any survey data backing this up (and considering also international markets, perhaps).

dawhizkid 9y ago

They will announce a cryptocurrency by EOY.

OoTheNigerian 9y ago

I have a feeling that if SnapChat allows sharing Od urls outside of the app (profile, stories etc) it will experience growth. No idea why it isn't that way today.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
adjkant 9y ago
There's nothing on a Snapchat profile really to share, as it should be. Stories are for friends, not public consumption. What content is actually needed to be seen outside of Snapchat?
- OoTheNigerian 9y ago
  It should be left to people to decide how public they want their stories to be.
  - nojvek 9y ago
    That’s not why people join Snapchat. It goes poof after 24 hours. You want the public to see it. Put it on your story and they can see it. Otherwise save to your “memory” and have it long term for your own public consumption. If they start going to be like Facebook and Twitter. I’ll immediately stop using it and i’m sure millions others will too.
  - adjkant 9y ago
    If you want to post at a more public and linkable level, there are many other services and nothing stopping you. That feature would do nothing for the current users of Snapchat and would really be against the purpose and spirit of the format. As mentioned, they would lose millions of users over it I am sure.

everdev 9y ago

What it always was: something in-between Facebook and Instagram. It's not the giant killer the founders thought it would be or the bust that others expected. Just a multi-billion dollar content (not camera) company with tons of young eyeballs.

bittermang 9y ago

Snapchat is and always has been a way for me to connect with my drug dealer, and trade nudes with open minded individuals in my social circles. Because of this, I have been utterly fascinated by Snapchat's continued existence, partnerships with major media brands, and being publicly traded. It boggles my mind that the app I use to buy weed and see titty has such a large footprint. It always feels like reality will catch up to Snapchat, and the ecosystem will come crashing down once everyone else realizes the Emperor is not wearing any clothes, and he's using the app to send pictures of his unclothed behind to everyone else.

jdtang13 9y ago
You really think that the many people who use Snapchat are all using it exactly the way you do?
- razster 9y ago
  I use it to show my circle of friends what projects I'm working on and to bug friends and family members.
- bittermang 9y ago
  Do you? Does anyone? We sit on high and talk about the kids and perceptions of cool. But the elephant in the room is never discussing what people are actually doing with the app. And to me, that is where the divide comes in. There is the Snapchat that is presented, the stories tab, and Snapcode links in Pepsi commercials. Then there is the Snapchat that is, how people are actually using it out in the wild.
  - jdtang13 9y ago
    I think it's much better to just ask a few 14-19 year olds how they use Snapchat, and what kind of messages they like to send and receive, rather than idly speculate.
    - ABCLAW 9y ago

wand3r 9y ago

> What is snapchat? The chief product architects of Instagram

adjkant 9y ago

What it's always been - a messaging app with pictures / videos / fun tools like filters, lenses, bitmojis (honestly my favorite and most useful part of Snapchat) that has stories for when I want to share with everyone. I feel like this is media analysis grasping at straws, just like they did when Facebook made a huge deal out of copying stories and having more users. Fast forward a year, Snapchat is still here and as far as we know just as used by their user base, though growing less than before.

dang 9y ago

This article is piggy-backing on the original source discussed yesterday here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16107183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16107183. Submitters: it'd be good if you'd take a minute to do some due diligence on articles like this before submitting them. The HN guidelines ask for original sources (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and this is the opposite.