Rise of the new app
There is a new playground for social media users and it is a revolution. By now we are all used to receiving, sending, and storing photos from our friends. But what to do if you don’t want your friends to have a copy of the picture you just sent. And here is the revolutionary new app Snapchat- it deletes photos a few moments after the receiver has seen it.
The main idea of the founder of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel is that deleting is default. The concept proved to be very successful. It is estimated that there are 7 million British using the Snapchat.
Why is Snapchat so popular?
Since the new app gained popularity very quickly, it is really astonishing this wasn’t developed a few years ago. Let’s take a closer look why. Only last February, we – internet users thought whatever was embarrassing, shameful or had illicit purpose had to be deleted. Snapchat changed our thinking; it doesn’t have to be bad to be deleted straight away. Snapshot simply captures our offline behaviour, when we show somebody a photo album, but we don’t want to copy it or give it away, we just share it for a moment. And this is exactly what happens in Snapchat, we show a picture and that’s it. And because it is online we share and show the moment instantly without leaving it behind.
How does Snapchat make profit?
As Spiegel noted Facebook and Twitter are seen as utilities, and that’s why people don’t pay for them, while apps like Snapchat are entertainment products and “people pay a lot for entertainment”. This raises the question how Snapchat is going to be monetised? Spiegel has got a plan, not revealed yet, to get users to pay for an add-on. In the meantime he turned down Facebook’s offer valuing Snapchat for $3bn.
It is hard to predict the future of Snapchat and its role in digital marketing; in the meantime it’s a great entertainment app.
