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How should we view these layoffs in comparison to say the ones done by twitter? They did a bunch of layoffs a year or so ago and it’s market cap has recovered s

How should we view these layoffs in comparison to say the ones done by twitter? They did a bunch of layoffs a year or so ago and it’s market cap has recovered significantly since then. The first wave of layoffs Snap did were related to the hw engineering org. AKA those glasses they mad, right? They were a commercial failure and a distraction so I viewed that as largely a positive sign. This wave of layoffs seems like they are trimming the fat in sales/marketing, again not necessarily a bad thing. Other companies like twitter have done this and gone on to recover. I think the biggest problem with Snap right now is how similar it is to Instagram now that Instagram has cloned stories. Twitter served a far different use case from Facebook and they seem pretty safe now that FB is backing away from news.

parliament32 9y ago
The thing is stories was never Snap's core product. If you remember back when SC first came out, there were no stories at all... although they had a "select all" button for firing off snaps to your entire friends list. Refer to Snap's S-1 filing[1]: 60% of daily active users send snaps daily, but only 25% of them post to their story. As far as I'm concerned, Insta et al are welcome to "stories" clones. Stories aren't what I, or most users, use Snapchat for. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000119312517029199/d270216ds1.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000119312517...
- rrdharan 9y ago
  Right, it wasn’t their core product but it was a thing that had a clearer monetization strategy. As far as I can tell no one has figured out a way to monetize private DM/group messaging via advertising. I actually deleted Facebook messenger from my phone in disgust a while back the first time I saw an advertisement mixed in among my list of conversations; I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have ads directly inserted in the messaging flow.
  - parliament32 9y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if they start inserting ads the same way they do after stories now: after you finish watching a received snap (or snaps), you get a video ad immediately after (and the user builds a reflex to down-swipe within a tenth of a second).

parliament32 9y ago

The thing is stories was never Snap's core product. If you remember back when SC first came out, there were no stories at all... although they had a "select all" button for firing off snaps to your entire friends list. Refer to Snap's S-1 filing[1]: 60% of daily active users send snaps daily, but only 25% of them post to their story. As far as I'm concerned, Insta et al are welcome to "stories" clones. Stories aren't what I, or most users, use Snapchat for. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000119312517029199/d270216ds1.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000119312517...

rrdharan 9y ago
Right, it wasn’t their core product but it was a thing that had a clearer monetization strategy. As far as I can tell no one has figured out a way to monetize private DM/group messaging via advertising. I actually deleted Facebook messenger from my phone in disgust a while back the first time I saw an advertisement mixed in among my list of conversations; I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have ads directly inserted in the messaging flow.
- parliament32 9y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if they start inserting ads the same way they do after stories now: after you finish watching a received snap (or snaps), you get a video ad immediately after (and the user builds a reflex to down-swipe within a tenth of a second).