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Almost every single comment here is negative. Snapchat is going to die soon. He doesn't know what he's doing. They're just going to use ads and then lose users.

Almost every single comment here is negative. Snapchat is going to die soon. He doesn't know what he's doing. They're just going to use ads and then lose users. Let's see what you're done. Snapchat has done well thus far not to alienate users while introducing features that allow brands to get their content in front of users (discover). Particularly difficult considering it's mostly a private network on which you share with friends. They haven't any huge privacy scandals yet either - at least none that have had an effect on usage. It may seem like just another dumb app to a lot of people here and honestly I thought the same for a while. My generation took quite a while to start using it but now it's something we use a lot. It's great for sharing pictures you don't need around forever on Facebook. Photos of nights out, as they happen for people who can't be there. Candid snaps on holidays and trips. I don't see it replacing Facebook for anyone but it seems to coexist nicely. Most of the negativity here is actually quite familiar. It's the same crap people spewed about Facebook for the last 6 years or so. Any none of it has really come true. Sorry for the rant.

pbiggar 11y ago
Completely agree. Spiegel came across as a douche once, but new CEOs learn incredibly quickly, esp when in charge of a 300+ person company with experienced help. I would guess he'll become a very good CEO (maybe he already is) and lead snapchat to an interesting and successful place. The product is certainly in a difficult space with finicky users, but those users are also extraordinarily valuable. No way to tell what will happen, wap if you're not in the demographic.
onewaystreet 11y ago
People generally have no vision, everything is either going to be a failure or was obvious.
striking 11y ago
I've seen people for which it replaced Facebook. (Not Instagram, Facebook. Instagram is their non-volatile memory, in this case.) For these groups, having a Facebook is "uncool" and "for old people". I don't know if it'll survive, but I love it to death. I'd be willing to pony up a buck to keep it around.
- clarky07 11y ago
  You say that, but the article states that 70% of teens use facebook vs. 40% for snapchat. I'm not sure a service with a billion users can really be labeled uncool by that many people.
  - striking 11y ago
    I really am focusing on the social elite of a small group of kids that I met over the summer. They're from California and I live on the East Coast (where Facebook is the norm). I'll be the first to admit that the plural of anecdote is not data. Which is why I said "some groups of people." In any case, I think the difference in user population is because of accessibility to technology. Snapchat basically demands a swanky, whiz-bang phone, which not all kids have. I'd be willing to bet that more than 30% of kids (the difference in the statistics) lack a Snapchat-capable phone. Being rich is cool, so apparently Snapchat is too. And it's cooler than Facebook, making Facebook uncool. I understand that there are a long list of logical fallacies in this section but hey, we're teens.
downandout 11y ago
> Let's see what you're done....It may seem like just another dumb app to a lot of people here It is just another dumb app with horrific usability issues. The fact that Evan Spiegel got lucky enough to have this go viral doesn't make him any smarter or a better person than anyone here. It makes him lucky. One of the things I used to do was viral branded content. We would post the same thing for days and get no traction at all, then suddenly the magic combination of the right people would share it and we would have a $20K revenue day with almost no work or advertising expenditure. I wasn't any smarter on those great days than I was on the bad days. Just luckier. This is what happened to Snapchat but on an epic scale, and it's only valuable now because they got lucky in the beginning and now there are 100M users.

pbiggar 11y ago

Completely agree. Spiegel came across as a douche once, but new CEOs learn incredibly quickly, esp when in charge of a 300+ person company with experienced help. I would guess he'll become a very good CEO (maybe he already is) and lead snapchat to an interesting and successful place. The product is certainly in a difficult space with finicky users, but those users are also extraordinarily valuable. No way to tell what will happen, wap if you're not in the demographic.

onewaystreet 11y ago

People generally have no vision, everything is either going to be a failure or was obvious.

striking 11y ago

I've seen people for which it replaced Facebook. (Not Instagram, Facebook. Instagram is their non-volatile memory, in this case.) For these groups, having a Facebook is "uncool" and "for old people". I don't know if it'll survive, but I love it to death. I'd be willing to pony up a buck to keep it around.

clarky07 11y ago
You say that, but the article states that 70% of teens use facebook vs. 40% for snapchat. I'm not sure a service with a billion users can really be labeled uncool by that many people.
- striking 11y ago
  I really am focusing on the social elite of a small group of kids that I met over the summer. They're from California and I live on the East Coast (where Facebook is the norm). I'll be the first to admit that the plural of anecdote is not data. Which is why I said "some groups of people." In any case, I think the difference in user population is because of accessibility to technology. Snapchat basically demands a swanky, whiz-bang phone, which not all kids have. I'd be willing to bet that more than 30% of kids (the difference in the statistics) lack a Snapchat-capable phone. Being rich is cool, so apparently Snapchat is too. And it's cooler than Facebook, making Facebook uncool. I understand that there are a long list of logical fallacies in this section but hey, we're teens.

downandout 11y ago

> Let's see what you're done....It may seem like just another dumb app to a lot of people here It is just another dumb app with horrific usability issues. The fact that Evan Spiegel got lucky enough to have this go viral doesn't make him any smarter or a better person than anyone here. It makes him lucky. One of the things I used to do was viral branded content. We would post the same thing for days and get no traction at all, then suddenly the magic combination of the right people would share it and we would have a $20K revenue day with almost no work or advertising expenditure. I wasn't any smarter on those great days than I was on the bad days. Just luckier. This is what happened to Snapchat but on an epic scale, and it's only valuable now because they got lucky in the beginning and now there are 100M users.