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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

#251

Post by jamiequint »

gjolund wrote: post #209
qq66 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And maybe someone who just got a liver transplant that you enabled announces it to their friends and family on Snapchat :)

Totally fine, but what had the bigger impact? What was the problem actually worth solving?

Which had a bigger impact? Almost certainly social media over any kind of liver transplant research. There are 20k liver transplants a year.

You realize that social media has created tens to hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value right? Even Twitter, which has struggled has created billions of dollars of economic value. From a utilitarian perspective that is worth far more.

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

#252

Post by gjolund »

argonaut wrote: post #239
gjolund wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or lack thereof.

Yes. By definition most people's day to day lives are average and not particularly special.

I find conversations on snapchat annoy me in the same way as conversations with a needy attention seeking girlfriend.

All the person wants is confirmation of existence, and most of the time they are not actually interested in a real conversation.

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

#253

Post by jamiequint »

gjolund wrote: post #249
jamiequint wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that cash grab model sure didn't work out for Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, etc. Good thing those finally failed due to the complete lack of value being provided and their associated pesky ad-based business models /s.

I noticed you left Twitter out, which is odd because it is the app that most closely resembles snapchat. FB acquired Instagram for its user base. Amazon acquired Twitch for its user base. Google acquired Youtube for its user base. How many snapchat users do you think also use those apps? How much additional value is being extracted from them via snapchat?

Your question isn't clear. Attention is value, why does it matter what other apps they also use?

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

#254

Post by licnep »

ljk wrote: post #115

For people who read the "How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds" article, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11737232 , does snapchat implement any of the "traps" the article mentions?

I think a few of them, although most social apps are bound to have these kinds of features:

hijack#2 (slot machine): you get a notification when you receive a snap but you don't know what it is until you open it

hijack#3 (Fear Of Missing Something Important): snapchat stories disappear after 24hr, so if you don't wanna miss content from your friends you must make sure to log in at least once a day

hijack#4 (Social Approval): when you post a story you can see how many people viewed it

hijack#5 (Social Reciprocity): when someone sends a snap to you personally and not to their story you feel compelled to send something back

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

#255

Post by rankam »

gjolund wrote: post #226
sotojuan wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I can only speak for myself here. I have no problem with snapchat the app. I think it is dumb, and don't enjoy using it, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't exist. What I do have a problem with is Snapchat being put on a pedestal, and perpetuating the SV cash grab business model. Get a bunch of users with a trendy app, data mine the shit out of them, and serve them ads until the app folds. There is no lasting val…

> data mine the shit out of them

That's one of the reasons they are so valuable - data. Data is so valuable to companies - it gives them insight into how consumers behave. Gett Taxi just raised $300M from Volkswagen and it's not because of their tech. It's because they have data on how urban residents move and travel. Google released TensorFlow and gave everyone access to easy to use and super advanced neural nets and they do this because it's not actually their algorithms that give them their competitive edge - it's their data. More data beats a clever algorithm every time.

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

#256

Post by technotony »

chubot wrote: post #40
argonaut wrote: post #35

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…

Don't forget that lots of people said Facebook wasn't monetizable either, just a few years ago.

The difference is that Facebook was within reach of cashflow positive at all times in it's growth, ie if they fired non-core staff could be cash flow positive within months (source: Mark Zuckerburg talk I went to). It had ad's from within the first few months of existence, that was Saverin's role before he left/was fired but they always built that part of the business and revenues always scaled with expenses.

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

#257

Post by stvswn »

andrepd wrote: post #41
traviswingo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, touche. Facebook is actually worth what the market claims it to be worth, because of the large amount of people in one place, all willing to tell the world exactly what their interests are. Its a marketing heaven. Snapchat might be worth a lot, but I'm just sick of companies like this being valued so high, simply because they provide literally no benefit to society. If Snapchat went down tomorrow, would it r…

That's a symptom of capitalism. When your sole objective is maximizing profit, all else be damned, there is no such thing as working for the greater good or solving any of the critical problems we need to solve to keep our species moving forward. You get photo-sharing apps.

Yes, this! Too many entrepreneurs are building things people like to use, instead of things people need.

What if there was a committee of experts -- leaders in the field -- who decided what startups got investment? They could truly weigh the cost-benefit analysis.

Of course, it would only work if there were some enforcement mechanism. So unauthorized coding would need to be outlawed. At least you couldn't spend any money on it.

We'd have to pick the right experts, too. That shouldn't be too hard, we could start right here on HN! Lots of smart people. The free market is so random, amoral, and inefficient. Obviously a group of well-educated, experienced software engineers could allocate labor way more efficiently.

This can't fail. When we get the pesky market out of the way, the sky's the limit! Progress together! History marches on!

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

#258

Post by gjolund »

jamiequint wrote: post #251
gjolund wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally fine, but what had the bigger impact? What was the problem actually worth solving?

Which had a bigger impact? Almost certainly social media over any kind of liver transplant research. There are 20k liver transplants a year. You realize that social media has created tens to hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value right? Even Twitter, which has struggled has created billions of dollars of economic value. From a utilitarian perspective that is worth far more.

Your opinion would change if someone you cared about needed a new liver.

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

#259

Post by [deleted] »

gjolund wrote: post #230
argonaut wrote: post #35

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 think anyone is debating the popularity of Snapchat. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said "I think there is legitimate reason to be doubtful about the appeal of these products because they have nothing to do with chatting with friends". In my opinion, when Snapchat is truly forced to monetize (such as twitter/fb after ipo) it will dillute the core product to the point that people will search for…

[deleted]

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

#260

Post by fitzwatermellow »

Currently developing tools to do market research and user analytics on Instagram. Experience so far with the Instagram API is quite positive. Take a look at the endpoints on their dev page and its immediately evident: Instagram exposes a lot of precious data. Consequently, it is the platform of choice for users who accept sponsorship for posts. Also, when reaching out to the Instagram team about improving tag discovery and search, they were very amenable :)

If anyone from Snapchat is monitoring this convo, I would implore you guys to prioritize your API rollout. Provide the tools that allow your users to be able to make data driven decisions. Building an ecosystem of creators who can figure out how to monetize their Stories better than any one else can is "the key"

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