Do you agree or disagree with the statement I made above?
Snapchat
Snapchat is more analogous to emojis than Instagram, IMHO. If iMessage had a similar feature I'd never use it.
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Josh Miller
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Joshua Kushner
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John Borthwick
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Nicholas Chirls
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Josh Elman
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Steve Schlafman
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Sean Rose
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Diego Zambrano
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Snapchat
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I believe that social media has evolved into a form of public masturbation (excuse my crudeness).
Joshua Kushner
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But I think what you're getting at, and I'd agree, is that Snapchat has the curvature of game rather than a highly engaged network.
Nicholas Chirls
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I think equating Snapchat with sexting is all wrong, just like saying twitter was about people sharing what they had for breakfast.
Josh Elman
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I'm not sure emojis is the right comparison. But I think what you're getting at, and I'd agree, is that Snapchat has the curvature of game rather than a highly engaged network. It will be interesting to see the engagement numbers over time. My bet is that you see vertical growth in the next few months followed by a cliff to the downside. The gaming networks work because you can transfer these users to a new game, I'm not sure snapchat can do that.
On the other hand, snapchat has the opportunity to be wildly profitable right now. How much do you think people would pay for added tools or for extra time viewing pictures? I think it's real money multiplied by massive user numbers. The question is how long they can make it work for...
Oh, interesting. Imagine if you only had the option to purchase more time while the photo was viewable (i.e. 3-5 seconds). Would compel Groupon-esque impulse buys because of time sensitivity. Can you imagine, $1 for 5 more seconds, with the option to re-up? Though this would only be valuable in the sexting scenario, which I (in all honestly) only think accounts for a fraction of usage.
@joshm its primary use is sexting which is a rather tenuous foundation.
Josh Miller added Sean Rose and Diego Zambrano.
> snapchat has the opportunity to be wildly profitable right now
Charging for additional time to view photos feels a little strange. Would most people really want to pay to see pictures from their friends/make their friends pay to see pictures? Especially if you don't see any of that money? It seems like that monetization avenue would only make sense if the pictures are being exchanged between people who don't know each other.
"20% of teens (13-20) and 33% of young adults (20-26) had sent nude or semi-nude photographs of themselves electronically. Additionally, 39% of teens and 59% of young adults had sent sexually explicit text messages."
It's hard to ignore how a lot of people will use it, and that will make the brand. It's hard to revert that perception once it's stablished. People will take photos of their screens and private photos will leak, then they will have a PR nightmare as they can't guarantee 100% that the image will stay private.
If they want to make it a game, and have serious advertisers down the road, they should be proactive and make sexting against the terms of service; and be vocal about it.
Sexting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org
I think equating Snapchat with sexting is all wrong, just like saying twitter was about people sharing what they had for breakfast. I think there is a viscerally new thing happening here around the axis of helping people share more. twitter, facebook, instagram all created tools that with a somewhat fixed audience you were excited to share more content and that has proven true. but in some ways it has become performance and "looking good" instead of just sharing. with Snapchat, all of a sudden you can share same things but it isn't persistent so it lets you share more naturally. Unclear if it is a big network or "just a feature" but I would not dismiss the new behavior
I agree with your statement only in that emoji and SnapChat are forms of self expression. I believe that social media has evolved into a form of public masturbation (excuse my crudeness). People are only willing to express themselves in a particular way as they know the content they produce will define their identity. I am fascinated by how comfortable I feel on SnapChat as I know that I cannot be held accountable for my behavior. The picture does not have to beautiful nor the content articulate. This is not the case for emoji as I view it in the context of email / text message. I am in agreement with Josh that I have been unable to determine whether SnapChat is anything other than a feature but I have enjoyed engaging with the product.
It makes complete sense, though. My sister and her friends (in high school) use Facebook a lot more than my friends. Their photos routinely have 99 Likes, while I'm lucky to get 5! If Facebook and Instagram are increasingly becoming stages, to show off your "best," it makes sense that Snapchat is an intimate, honest, and temporary nook.