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Why I love Snapchat

justinkan.com

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Re: Why I love Snapchat

#111

Post by Alex3917 »

dorian-graph wrote: post #84
justin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My initial confusion came from 1) not immediately understanding how the UI worked, 2) not being that interested in learning because few of my social network were one it. Once I invested a few minutes in understanding it out I loved it. I think the same would be true for many other people who "don't get it".

It's concerning that those who don't get it then act confused about why anyone else would like it. It seems like out of 2 possible responses, the ideal should be b) a) I don't understand it or see the appeal, then why do other people like it? b) I don't like it or see the appeal, but others do. Cool.

I completely understand the appeal of snapchat; it's basically LSD in social network form... The intimacy of shared human experience, the infinite nowness, the mindfuck UI, the altered values, the sense of sacred space, etc.

But much like acid, I feel like I wouldn't be able to engage with it everyday without weird things happening to my brain. I totally support people who use it, just personally I'm content with mostly experiencing it vicariously through other people.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#112

Post by yarou »

gragas wrote: post #107
justin wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to write coherent paragraphs is a major key. Even if you Snapchat.

I pointed this out in my comment. You're just disparaging my writing, now, which isn't really a contribution at all.

Your response is a prime example of how hypersensitive your generation is to criticism.

A healthy dose of criticism is not only a contribution, but a form of flattery in a way. (Because your detractor thought your comment was worthy of critique, or else they would have ignored it)

At any rate, the way I read Justin's comment was that he was agreeing with you, but I could be wrong.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#113

Post by zo7 »

I'm surprised that there's so much "I don't get it" sentiment here. You would think that everyone on HN would be clamoring to figure out how Snapchat is able to get as many users as it has.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#114

Post by gragas »

yarou wrote: post #112
gragas wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pointed this out in my comment. You're just disparaging my writing, now, which isn't really a contribution at all.

Your response is a prime example of how hypersensitive your generation is to criticism. A healthy dose of criticism is not only a contribution, but a form of flattery in a way. (Because your detractor thought your comment was worthy of critique, or else they would have ignored it) At any rate, the way I read Justin's comment was that he was agreeing with you, but I could be wrong.

It's true that I immediately thought Justin was criticizing my writing.

But if you're right—that Justin was agreeing with me—his comment doesn't counter mine or add to it. It just reiterates something I already said.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#115

Post by derefr »

Bahamut wrote: post #34
jmduke wrote: post #25

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…

Wholeheartedly agree - I spent 2 weeks at a friend's place just a week ago, and my friend I was in became obsessed with recording videos purely for Snapchat every time. Instead of focusing on the moment with friends, she was more concerned with posting something on Snapchat for our circle to see. I don't want everything I do blasted on social media - I want to enjoy the moments I spend with friends. Snapchat is the o…

Draw that dividing line on the other side of the phone and Snapchat "snaps" into clarity for me: Snapchat is for "enjoying the moments you spend with friends" when those friends are somewhere else.

If you're alone at a bar, but you take some snaps and send them to your friends and they reply while you're still there, it's sorta-kinda-almost like you're hanging out there with them.

Or, for a more powerful example: sending snaps of random things over the course of your day to someone you're in a long-distance relationship with. It's the minute-at-a-time version of exactly what Justin.TV could have done: let you "hang out" with your SO while in another country by being pushed a feed from the camera on their shoulder. (While presumably also being able to text or talk on the phone with them as you like, as well.)

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#116

Post by mblevin »

dorian-graph wrote: post #84
justin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My initial confusion came from 1) not immediately understanding how the UI worked, 2) not being that interested in learning because few of my social network were one it. Once I invested a few minutes in understanding it out I loved it. I think the same would be true for many other people who "don't get it".

It's concerning that those who don't get it then act confused about why anyone else would like it. It seems like out of 2 possible responses, the ideal should be b) a) I don't understand it or see the appeal, then why do other people like it? b) I don't like it or see the appeal, but others do. Cool.

Except most people's natural reaction when they don't understand other people's value systems is not empathy - it's criticism.

It happens on a much lesser level with food, music, movies, etc - the reaction from a non-fan to a 15 year-old girl's declaration that she loves One Direction is not "ok I see why someone could like this music and why this tribal affiliation is both socially useful to a teenager" but rather

Snapchat is the technology version of One Direction for a lot of adults. But also remember many adults couldn't understand why teenage girls went crazy for The Beatles in 1964 either.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#117

Post by parfe »

nswanberg wrote: post #26
parfe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't think it's the people. I think it's the content.

Facebook and Twitter inundate me with reshared content from third parties that I mostly have no interest in. Snapchat in contrast is content created by people I know, and they choose to send it to me specifically.

It might be as mundane as breakfast, or a pet doing something funny, or new bedroom curtains, but it's still an update about the life of a friend. Facebook might have a rant about how awful the day at work was which is boring to read. We've all got jobs. Or a reshare of 43 things every women in her 30s hates about Thursday afternoon. Snapchat might have a picture of someone's lunch knocked onto the floor. You think "hah that sucks" and it's gone.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#118

Post by angryasian »

justin wrote: post #82
angryasian wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but i still don't understand how its different from going to a users profile directly on instagram or twitter, to see only what they posted.

That's not the default way most people use those services.

Ok thanks, that makes sense. I'm just curious when snapchat has longevity like twitter, and you have hundreds of people you're following their stories, how that User experience will be different than twitter or instagram at that point. I imagine, eventually they will need a way to curate the best user stories or active user stories out of your list of hundreds.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#119

Post by parfe »

soneca wrote: post #19
parfe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So Spapchat achieved what Path tried limiting friends? Real connections with real friends. Funny thing, went to Path.com now and find out two interesting things: i) they have two apps at the same website now - Path, the social network and Talk, a messaging app; and ii) they don't even mention the 150 friends limit anymore (contrasting that it was the core feature and the epicenter of their launch campaign)

altonzheng got it right I think when he wrote

  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
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10860501

Snapchat requires you to select who you want to see your snap. There's no facility to push into everyone's feed. I'm not sending it to my "Friends" or my "Family" without consideration.

You aren't going to click 200 people, or 150, or 50. You're going to think "These five people really love hiking." Or "My cousins were talking about adopting a husky." Or "Last time I burned bacon like this was with John and Jane."

Saying "you can only have 150 friends" wasn't the key to a more personal experience. It just meant there was a hard limit on how many people could spam you. The key for me is the tiny marginal cost of sending something to N+1 people, so instead you choose more thoughtfully.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#120

Post by dorian-graph »

nmat wrote: post #41
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.

The bad UI generates a sort of viral effect. I know a lot of young kids who use snapchat and often the conversation starts with 'How did you do that effect on that video?' or 'How do you send a text message without a picture?'. Snapchat is one of few apps that has a lot of hidden features for power users that are not explained anywhere. I am not saying that it is a good thing, but it makes people talk about it.

> Snapchat is one of few apps that has a lot of hidden features for power users that are not explained anywhere.

AFAIK, every feature is explained on Snapchat's website. Also when new features are introduced, they've usually explained in the release notes on how to use them—like when lenses were first added.

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