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Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

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Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#91
post #28

Can someone who uses Snapchat routinely tell me why you use it routinely? I've been using it for a few weeks to send a picture or two to the few people I know who use it, but it seems pretty limited. I follow a few "famous" people on it, and they basically just post random images of them walking around NYC or them traveling. I don't yet see the benefit.

I think what a lot of people use it for (myself included) is for sending something to a lot of friends at once while still seeming individual. They don't know you sent it to a lot of people and therefore more likely to get a reply

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#92
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it somewhat humorous that the examples GCP reps hold up as use cases are grossly unprofitable startups (Snapchat, Spotify).

What are you implying?

Exactly what you imply in your sibling post to mine.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#93
post #80

Shameless Google Cloud plug: Snapchat runs entirely on Google Cloud Platform, and have famously declared that they have 0 Ops people because everything they use is fully-managed and no-ops. This is one of the reasons they are able to deliver features at such a rapid pace - they aren't worried about scale or reliability the way anyone at the scale is on-premise or on AWS/Azure.

I find it somewhat humorous that the examples GCP reps hold up as use cases are grossly unprofitable startups (Snapchat, Spotify).

It can't hurt that the aforementioned companies, however unprofitable, don't need to spend as much on ops.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#94

How are snapchat employees making out here? It seems like share dilution and even more investors getting exit preference has got to be eroding value like crazy. Perhaps someone with some experience can shed some light here, if you joined snapchat 2 or 3 years ago are you seeing all of your supposed value evaporating away?

You're forgetting that the valuation of the company has been growing exponentially

https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAA...

With this latest round it exceeds $20 billion.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#95
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been much more than only disappearing images for a while.

Yea. Slap on a pair of dog ears and a filter. And then disappear.

Between stories, geo filters, face filters, discover, chat, video chat, trophies, streaks, etc. it's become a bit more than just disappearing images.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#96

People need to stop focusing their criticism on how stupid the app is or how they're going to lose all their users. It's almost a meme by now of how people say this every time Snapchat is brought up. By now it's a foregone conclusion, and requires active ignorance and not really caring to keep an open mind, to continue to hold onto that belief in the face of tremendous evidence that 1) Snapchat is very popular, 2) Sn…

look, I am all for giving snapchat the benefit of the doubt (or I did a long time ago) it was actully the classic zuckerberg boardroom story peter theil tells all the time, except zuckerberg was yahoo to snapchat(i think yahoo was the aquirer but IDRP). Mark Zuckerberg was a the full package, a super talented developer and shrewd business man. Maybe he was cocky, maybe he was super clever, but he doubled down on hims…

All those grafs and you still can't figure it out.

Say you have a Snapchat account and follow 25 of your friends. Each of them are active and contribute 30 second snap stories maybe 4 times a day.

That means it's 50 minutes of footage. A day.

Say it's not just friends anymore but you're also following brands or brands pay your friends to act out something as well.

Snapchat is the new MTV.

With instant ability to chat with whoever, whenever, in augmented reality.

After 20 years on the internet this shit is so future.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#97
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it somewhat humorous that the examples GCP reps hold up as use cases are grossly unprofitable startups (Snapchat, Spotify).

It can't hurt that the aforementioned companies, however unprofitable, don't need to spend as much on ops.

You're trading ops costs to be locked into a platform. Does that matter? Probably not if you're targeting being acquired by Google. If you intend to eventually move to your own equipment, it does matter.

There is no such thing as no ops. Only someone else doing ops, no more than I can have TensorFlow write code instead of developers.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

look, I am all for giving snapchat the benefit of the doubt (or I did a long time ago) it was actully the classic zuckerberg boardroom story peter theil tells all the time, except zuckerberg was yahoo to snapchat(i think yahoo was the aquirer but IDRP). Mark Zuckerberg was a the full package, a super talented developer and shrewd business man. Maybe he was cocky, maybe he was super clever, but he doubled down on hims…

"If a snapchat clone came out tomorrow, snapchat wouldn't be as sticky" there have been plenty. facebook even launched one

I outlined my thoughts, a large social network would have to do it. linkedin, google, twitter, microsoft or facebook. LinkedIn, twitter, facebook being the most profitable. Maybe apple, for the security, weird FBI hacking thing although their software has gone down hill. I digress,

what was the Facebook snapchat clone? I haven't heard of a large scale effort to clone snapchat yet. If I were to build a comparable universe of companies for snapchat, I would say it is a lot like tinder, twitter and foursquare.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#99

People need to stop focusing their criticism on how stupid the app is or how they're going to lose all their users. It's almost a meme by now of how people say this every time Snapchat is brought up. By now it's a foregone conclusion, and requires active ignorance and not really caring to keep an open mind, to continue to hold onto that belief in the face of tremendous evidence that 1) Snapchat is very popular, 2) Sn…

I don't understand why use cases 1 and 2 wouldn't just send a text message picture. Why would you bother with a 3rd party app that erases them? With that said, that is probably the least percentage reason as to why people use it. The greatest being for sending half naked photos to strangers.

> I don't understand why use cases 1 and 2 wouldn't just send a text message picture. Why would you bother with a 3rd party app that erases them?

Snapchat has more features than sending a simple text. I still use text message pictures when I just want to send a picture. Snapchat lets you caption and draw on photos, which is a big draw. The erasing part of it is a feature too, and not just for nude pics. For example, sometimes I send off color humor to my friends and knowing that the joke's going to go away in 5 seconds makes me less hesitant to send. I don't think my friends themselves are going to screenshot the pics and try to disparage me, but I would feel uncomfortable if I were to email something to them that may accidentally be seen by an SO or parent.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#100

Every single person here seems negative about Snapchat. I am 30+, use it occasionally, and see more and more of my older friends signing up. Especially those friends far away from the echo chamber. This fundraising feels smart for investors who want a great return and for the company to use to get to an IPO. If you don't use Snapchat, or haven't used it in a few years, it is probably time you take a second look.

People on tech forums are typically negative about social media apps and platforms. It's pretty interesting.
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