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Why I love Snapchat

justinkan.com

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Re: Why I love Snapchat

#21

Post by urda »

vdnkh wrote: post #17

I wish Snapchat wasn't actively hostile to the WP market. They have outright refused to make an app and when the third party app 6snap appeared (which was quite good), they fought and had it removed. Rudy Huyun, the developer, even offered Snapchat the source code for free. Evan Spiegel even went so far as to mock the platform. http://www.windowscentral.com/how-you-cant-get-snapchat-wind...

Unfortunately it's their product and they can do as they wish with it. If this includes not building it for WP, well that's life. 6snap wasn't their app, and yes they had every right to have it removed from the WP store.

That's how the game is played, if one doesn't like it then don't use Snapchat.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#22

Post by iLoch »

vdnkh wrote: post #17

I wish Snapchat wasn't actively hostile to the WP market. They have outright refused to make an app and when the third party app 6snap appeared (which was quite good), they fought and had it removed. Rudy Huyun, the developer, even offered Snapchat the source code for free. Evan Spiegel even went so far as to mock the platform. http://www.windowscentral.com/how-you-cant-get-snapchat-wind...

I don't know.. Releasing a Windows Phone app means maintaining a Windows Phone app. Cost of maintenance for a userbase that is like 2% globally isn't worth while for most companies.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#23

Post by DarkTree »

altonzheng wrote: post #14

I had a similar revelation a while back with Snapchat. Users complain that you can't create groups to send to, you have to manually select each person. I like this - it means when you receive a snapchat, you know that person intentionally selected you to share a part of their life with. It adds a subtle but meaningful quality to a message that could be considered spammy and impersonal.

I completely agree with this. Every time I get a snap from someone who I'm not super close with, I can't help but feel happy that they specifically selected me. In return, I tend to send snaps to my fringe friends more often to let them know I'm thinking of them as well.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#24

Post by city41 »

urda wrote: post #21
vdnkh wrote: post #17

I wish Snapchat wasn't actively hostile to the WP market. They have outright refused to make an app and when the third party app 6snap appeared (which was quite good), they fought and had it removed. Rudy Huyun, the developer, even offered Snapchat the source code for free. Evan Spiegel even went so far as to mock the platform. http://www.windowscentral.com/how-you-cant-get-snapchat-wind...

Unfortunately it's their product and they can do as they wish with it. If this includes not building it for WP, well that's life. 6snap wasn't their app, and yes they had every right to have it removed from the WP store. That's how the game is played, if one doesn't like it then don't use Snapchat.

Conversely if apps are important to you, Windows Phone may not be the best choice.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#25

Post by jmduke »

I was about to make a snarky comment disagreeing with Justin -- as one of those folks who can't deal with Snapchat, I think it's a weird encapsulation of a lot of my complaints of newer social apps.

The UX feels deliberately confusing and disorienting; it promotes a culture of manufactured intimacy; I have to deal with a bunch of software developers thinking they're hip by saying 'bless up' and flooding their social media presences with key emojis, as if a celebrity culture disseminated via Snapchat is different than any other celebrity culture. I also don't really understand how you can write an article saying Snapchat is unmanufactured and not a "social dick-measuring contest" while using DJ Khaled as your main example (and ending with an "add me on Snapchat!").

But this article is titled Why I love Snapchat, and not Why Snapchat is the best. And honestly -- I know a lot of people who love Snapchat. And that's totally cool! Software that creates joy is almost always a net positive thing, and even if I don't really dig Snapchat I'm glad that other people do.

It's okay to love software, even if its flawed or not the ~~ future of media ~~ or whatever. I loved Glitch, a game that hopefully Stewart Butterfield will revive at some point. I love Reddit, even though I find a substantial and growing chunk of its userbase/content to be somewhere between abysmal and appalling.

(Just please, stop with the key emojis.)

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#26

Post by nswanberg »

parfe wrote: post #15
soneca wrote: post #3

"The cost of content creation is extremely low, and Snapchat makes it fun to think about what aspects of what I’m doing every day might be cool for other people to see." But what is the reward of content creation? Honest question. How do a user feel their effort in posting was worthy? I never used Snapchat, so I don't get it much. Although I'm for sure not dismissive as some, I just never tried it.

Maybe someone replies. Maybe they don't. It's a low effort way of saying "Hey, I find this thing is worth 10 seconds of your time." My friend sent me a snap of her niece throwing a temper tantrum. It was funny. I chuckled. It disappeared. We got lunch weeks later, and I asked if her niece ever calmed down. She laughed, we moved on. She got to share a funny moment in her life with me (and presumably other people) beca…

Do you think that's more due to how it works or due to the kinds of people who currently spend time on each?

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#27

Post by johnloeber »

vdnkh wrote: post #17

I wish Snapchat wasn't actively hostile to the WP market. They have outright refused to make an app and when the third party app 6snap appeared (which was quite good), they fought and had it removed. Rudy Huyun, the developer, even offered Snapchat the source code for free. Evan Spiegel even went so far as to mock the platform. http://www.windowscentral.com/how-you-cant-get-snapchat-wind...

I have no data on this, but I'm willing to bet you that Snapchat is explicitly marketed to young people, and young people don't have Windows phones. The WP is basically a pariah as far as integration with social media is concerned because it's at the bottom of every company's priority list. Beyond that, young people are generally quite image-conscious, and having a Windows phone seems both weirdly non-conforming and, by affiliation with Windows, terribly boring.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#28

Post by grumblebeans »

joenot443 wrote: post #13
minimaxir wrote: post #12

The problem I have with Snapchat is that there are many deliberate, counterintuitive UI/UX decisions which make the app hard to use. This causes a lot of bad post-hoc rationalization from many startups that "Snapchat is a multibillion dollar startup, and they have these bad UX features, therefore if we have these X features we will be successful too!" And thus the startup ecosystem as a whole gets dragged down.

What decisions specifically are you talking about?

Probably how it relies on a lot of swiping or icons to expose functionality. This isn't the easiest way for new users to discover how to use an app.

Once you know how to use it though, it's pretty cool.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#30

Post by jakejake »

joenot443 wrote: post #13
minimaxir wrote: post #12

The problem I have with Snapchat is that there are many deliberate, counterintuitive UI/UX decisions which make the app hard to use. This causes a lot of bad post-hoc rationalization from many startups that "Snapchat is a multibillion dollar startup, and they have these bad UX features, therefore if we have these X features we will be successful too!" And thus the startup ecosystem as a whole gets dragged down.

What decisions specifically are you talking about?

Not sure about OP but I find the swiping to be somewhat nonsensical as far as allowing me to have a mental map of where I am in the app. Sometimes I almost think they were having a laugh with the UI and saying "swipe up here to exit" when you swiped left or clicked to get there.

It seemed like it was done originally by somebody with bad UX skills - or else it was intentional to piss off older people and let the kids have their own thing..?!

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