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Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

bloomberg.com

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Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#11
post #6

I had this realization a while ago, Snapchat is basically what Twitter tried to achieve, a realtime pulse on everything happening anywhere, democratic and spontaneous because of information constraints. The difference being that Twitter is plagued with bad actors (you can be mean when you're just typing), whereas Snapchat is much more engaging, friendly, and to put it in a term that everyone understands: fun! The sad…

Uh. Twitter is instantly public and indexed by google. Snapchat content goes away. They have very, very different goals. That said, it's easily agreeable that Snapchat the app is a flaming pile of brogramming.

Personally, I think in the long run, when you think of it, they are really similar. I get that they are physically entirely different products, but I feel like they are both competing for the same limited resource: attention.

I'm speaking solely from what I value personally, but to me, I lump Twitter and Snapchat in the same category that can be described as: what I do when I'm bored and want to see what's happening around me. When the problem statement is that, Snapchat just blows Twitter out of the water in terms of entertainment. When I watch the Warriors play off on Snapchat, I get to see the entire game filmed through crowdsourcing - it's like I'm there. I'd argue Twitter is trying to capture that same feeling of being there. Also, I haven't included Facebook in this since they are beyond that, they are basically a utility at this point.

I thought Snapchat was dumb at first, trust me. However, it's increasingly proving itself to be a very, very important medium of video distribution. Of course, there will always be a market for more curated content, but for real time, spontaneous content, Snapchat beats Twitter for me anyday.

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#12
post #6

I had this realization a while ago, Snapchat is basically what Twitter tried to achieve, a realtime pulse on everything happening anywhere, democratic and spontaneous because of information constraints. The difference being that Twitter is plagued with bad actors (you can be mean when you're just typing), whereas Snapchat is much more engaging, friendly, and to put it in a term that everyone understands: fun! The sad…

Uh. Twitter is instantly public and indexed by google. Snapchat content goes away. They have very, very different goals. That said, it's easily agreeable that Snapchat the app is a flaming pile of brogramming.

The snapchat app is fun, easy to use for the most part, full of good features, and aesthetically pleasing. What's your deal with it?

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#13
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh. Twitter is instantly public and indexed by google. Snapchat content goes away. They have very, very different goals. That said, it's easily agreeable that Snapchat the app is a flaming pile of brogramming.

Personally, I think in the long run, when you think of it, they are really similar. I get that they are physically entirely different products, but I feel like they are both competing for the same limited resource: attention. I'm speaking solely from what I value personally, but to me, I lump Twitter and Snapchat in the same category that can be described as: what I do when I'm bored and want to see what's happening…

Snapchat is your generation's MTV. It'll be okay. Then one day you'll get old and see the kids do something else. Rinse repeat.

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#14
This metric is not quite accurate, but Google Trends [1] gives a decent overview of how Twitter has been on the decline for the past 3 years.

Instagram has surpassed them in search traffic. Snapchat is more than a year away, but given how young they are is quite impressive.

[1] https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=snapchat#q=snapchat%...

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#15
30something here -

It took me a while to "get" Snapchat, but in my opinion there is no better way to keep up with friends and family digitally than via Snapchat Stories.

You can post pretty shamelessly the little things you're up to all day to your story, knowing it will be gone in 24 hours, keeping your feed really clean. Posting more than once or twice a day to Instagram/Facebook seems excessive, Twitter is a bit more of a firehose than a way to see what everyone is doing.

It took me a bit to get used to the interface, but the goofiness of the entire service is so enjoyable, including all their filters and whatnot.

I've noticed myself spending way more time on Snapchat than on other services as of late, even in my "old age for social media."

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#16
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh. Twitter is instantly public and indexed by google. Snapchat content goes away. They have very, very different goals. That said, it's easily agreeable that Snapchat the app is a flaming pile of brogramming.

The snapchat app is fun, easy to use for the most part, full of good features, and aesthetically pleasing. What's your deal with it?

Maybe it's because I'm in my 30s but I find the UI completely undiscoverable.

I know how to use it now, but it took me a while to figure out, probably because I didn't have a friend group to show me how, as opposed to the teenagers I've seen use it, who have friends show them new features.

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#17
post #3

Snapchat has undoubtedly grown; it's really impressive. But much of Twitter's content you can consume without being logged-in. Is that accounted for at all?

Twitter reports Monthly Active Users as 310M [1] which, as far as I can tell[2], represents just logged-in users. I presume that Bloomberg would use the standard-ish term of "active users" to mean the same thing.

Twitter also reports it has 1B monthly uniques "to sites with embedded Tweets"[1].

[1] - https://about.twitter.com/company

[2] - http://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-...

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#18
I'm excited to see when snapchat figures out a way to replicate the 'DJ Khaled' effect. I want to discover interesting people doing cool stuff and right now i'm not sure how i'd go about doing this on snapchat whereas Twitter won't stop recommending people to me.

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#19
post #3

Snapchat has undoubtedly grown; it's really impressive. But much of Twitter's content you can consume without being logged-in. Is that accounted for at all?

Hmm. That's an interesting thought about how to skew 'engagement' stats. Maybe that's why I can't view Pinterest pages without that irritating "you must log in" sheet scrolling over the content.
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