It’s difficult to overlook Snapchat’s relevance in the app marketplace, with its activity rate growing from 20 million photos shared last October to nearly 350 million a year later. Of course, we have to acknowledge the other leading contender in the room — Instagram. Though Snapchat’s CEO Evan Spiegel explains they aren’t direct competitors, “Snapchat is about sharing moments, whereas Instagram is about saving beautified photos.”
To give some background on the product, Snapchat is a social sharing tool where users communicate via images or videos (up to 10 seconds), but the message immediately deletes itself after being viewed. It’s easier to think of these messages as self-destructive texts. The application is available for free on both iOS and Android devices, though the latter primarily makes up the bulk of the user base. The total number of users is still kept mum by Snapchat.
One of the advantages to the app is its speed in capturing videos and images. Shareable moments are fleeting, so it’s important for users to be able to access their phones and capture that particular moment before it ends. The company has a patent — “Single mode visual media capture,” where the button for snapping images is the same for capturing videos.
The Projected Direction of Snapchat.
In terms of where it’s going in the immediate future, there are discussions of implementing a feed. When you think of social media properties, an aggregate feed is almost necessary — Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, etc. all include a streaming feed. “The interesting thing about a feed is that the more content you consume, the more photos, videos you look at, the farther away in time you get from your friends … and that doesn’t make you feel very good,” Spiegel said, talking about the chronology of most social feeds. If a feed were to be added, it would have to maintain the essence of Snapchat’s mission of real-time sharing of impermanent content.
Why Should We Care?
What does this mean to advertisers? The short answer is it’s too soon to tell, but Spiegel has caught the attention of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. The overall user flow needs to be finessed before discussions of monetization can occur, though integrating advertisers into a feed would be my best guess at branding opportunities.
*David is a Supervisor on the Fox Theatrical account at Moxie LA. He enjoys medium walks on the beach, carbs and French Bulldog puppies. Follow him at @DavidNNguyen.
