Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 309 posts

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#261

Post by alanwatts »

sharkweek wrote: post #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 m…

>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.

Snapchat is ephemeral and more private, like the spoken word, and unlike pretty much all other social media that I know of. It is an interesting concept, people feel more open to share certain things when they know it will fade away soon after rather than be on historical record .

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#262

Post by toomuchtodo »

dasil003 wrote: post #41
toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one cares how well the Skinner box is written, just as long as the right levers can be pulled and buttons pressed.

I agree with your cynicism. I have no problem with snapchat per se, one of the most brilliant things about it is that it recreates the ephemerality the world has always known, which for some reason the internet pioneers got in their brain needed to be replaced by archivalism that defined the first 30 years of the public internet. It's actually quite brilliant to bring this sort of casual conversation to a social netw…

> My problem is just with the addictive nature of apps in general. Facebook is probably a worse violator than Snapchat, but in the end all popular apps by definition sort of have to do this. Call me a hypocrite since I've been obsessed with computers and tech my whole life, but something about this makes me so sad. I hope we can live in a future where we are not all glued to our phones all the time.

Agree! Your hope is my hope, but I'm losing faith fast.

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#263

Post by alanwatts »

pmlnr wrote: post #206
jug wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad? I think Snapchat manages to be successful because the messages are not meaningless just because they are later removed, but because they are as meaningful and easily relatable as normal conversations. If you aren't around to hear the latest gossip (Snapchat story), you will miss out. But it doesn't matter, because it's not about life or death. Not something even intended to be saved, catalogued, scrutinized. And…

> If you aren't around to hear the latest gossip (Snapchat story), you will miss out. Who said gossips? "Stories" have and utterly different meaning to me. Journals stick around. Letters stick around. Notes stick around. They are important. We evolved to write, not just talk, and reading back who you have been 10 years ago, even if it's just a plain entry, can be surprisingly useful to maintain a healthy soul, especi…

Knowing that what you say will be private(ish) and not be kept on historical record (at least not in public -- I assume Snapchat saves everything) can lead one to be more open, honest, and up-front in their communication.

Whereas writing something which will be kept on the public historical record for all to see forever leads to both conscious and subconscious self-censorship and can be misleading when trying to "read back who you have been 10 years ago" because what you wrote may not have been what you were really thinking.

The ephemeral nature of the spoken word and the historical nature of the written word both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#264

Post by bthallplz »

sbardle wrote: post #197
plaidturtle wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

early 20 something here. My friends and I went "offline" and we are much closer and happier. Social media is overrated. I think we will look back at this time in the future like how we look back at cigarette smoking in the 50s. It has its place but its usefulness is limited. I don't question Snapchat's business potential, though. edit: also I find it funny (and pathetic) how industry analyst struggle to understand so…

I'm in the same boat. I was chatting to some Chinese business people yesterday. What we call social media, they call "self media". I think that is a better description of how most of us use social networks, i.e. to broadcast ourselves. But there is still underlying value in the connectness which social networks enable. For example my local community is using Facebook to bring everyone together to oppose a gravel deve…

Please forgive me for generalizing, but from what stereotypes of Chinese culture that I've heard, I've been given the impression that the Chinese tend to be conservative with regards to outwardly expressing themselves. Given that this may be the case, is it not unsurprising that they would see a platform that is about visual expression and that focuses upon the creator of content, as being possibly too self-oriented?

If this is the case, such a perception may act as a barrier to their ability to perceive that it is a platform that can be used for the creation and strengthening of interpersonal bonds (social media).

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#265

Post by danso »

Sacho wrote: post #196
brianwawok wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you ask them if you want to know what they are doing? I still don't get it.

I am amazed this sentiment keeps popping up over and over in this thread. Asking them is exactly the kind of synchronous, flow-breaking communication that programmers should be keenly aware of. People are naturally discovering that polling is worse than event driven notifications, and it's great to watch. There are plenty of arguments to make in favor of synchronous, face-to-face etc communication, about the loss of…

Great way to put it so that a technologist can understand. A lot of my best friends came from passive serendipitous interactions on FB that built into the kind strong and familiar enough to turn into "synchronous" interactions.

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#266

Post by J-dawg »

enraged_camel wrote: post #247
J-dawg wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great post. > There is nothing to "get" other than to understand that as you become older the thing that's changing is you For proof of this, look no further than when Facebook introduced the timeline, making it easier to view old wall posts. People went crazy, claiming their private messages had been made public [0]. In truth, they just couldn't remember how unconcerned with privacy they used to be. [0] http://www.b…

It's not about privacy directly, but about the expectation for their old posts to be "forgotten." This is why the so-called "right to be forgotten" is/was a big deal in Europe.

It was more than that. People were looking at old wall posts (which were always public) and they couldn't believe that they'd ever had those conversations in public. Hence jumping to the conclusion that their private messages had somehow been converted into public posts.

I think it's fascinating on two counts. Firstly that the accepted etiquette of how we use social media changed so quickly. And secondly that people's brains can simply reject something they did in the past, if it doesn't fit their current sense of self.

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#267

Post by soundwave106 »

weavie wrote: post #233
mrweasel wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Someone invents a service that does that. Slowly ads take over. The problem really is that no one wants to pay for services, or no one is willing to try charging for their services. Ads are the "safe" option, but it will also make your users leave in the long run. I was pretty baffled when a publisher wrote that they would rather make money from ads on their site, than make money from people buying a subscription. S…

So what is the alternative? We don't want to pay, we don't want ads.. how else can these things make money?

I pretty much use Facebook to follow local companies I'm interested in (as it is currently useless for personal interests at this time). I doubt I'm alone in using Facebook in this manner. I've sometimes wondered if ultimately Facebook could monetize off of that.

(Even on this angle, the problem right now is that Facebook's ad algorithm is a bit, er, dumb. At least, it hasn't figured out that I'm far more interested in local business X, Y, and Z that I'm following and not whatever unrelated spam some megagiantcorp is pushing...)

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#268

Post by plaidturtle »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #242
plaidturtle wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

early 20 something here. My friends and I went "offline" and we are much closer and happier. Social media is overrated. I think we will look back at this time in the future like how we look back at cigarette smoking in the 50s. It has its place but its usefulness is limited. I don't question Snapchat's business potential, though. edit: also I find it funny (and pathetic) how industry analyst struggle to understand so…

>> "My friends and I went "offline" and we are much closer and happier." I'm guessing all your friends live nearby? If not, how do you keep in touch with them 'offline'?

With friends who live close by, we don't interact online. Instead we schedule dinner or make plans for weekends.

With friends who don't live nearby, I don't talk to them as often. I still have my FB account but I don't follow anyone on FB, so my News Feed is empty. I keep it alive for FB messenger, which I use to chat with some friends occasionally. Or if I'm traveling nearby, I'll let them know and schedule something. I used the word "offline" in a sense that I don't subscribe to people and I don't broadcast my activities.

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#269

Post by wepple »

stuartleigh wrote: post #259
TeMPOraL wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP is probably including the time it takes to get to the airport, get through the baggage drop, security and boarding procedures, as well as get from the airport to their destination. It can easily add up if both they and their family live in places far from their respective airports, and we're talking intercontinental flight.

Probably, it takes me almost 30 hours to get from the UK to Australia if you could airport transfers and stopovers.

Yep, and add +4 to get to NZ and +2 being in "not London" in the UK for me.

Re: Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

#270

Post by NathanKP »

themagician wrote: post #145
sharkweek wrote: post #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 m…

There is nothing to "get". It's all the same. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat. People want a free way to broadcast to their friends. Someone invents a service that does that. Slowly ads take over. Now the stream needs to be "curated". It's no longer a timeline. It's no longer sensible. Now you can no longer reliably broadcast to your friends. People search for a new service that did what the old service used t…

The thing that people tend to miss about Snapchat is that it has a really creative monetization strategy.

I actually like Snapchat ads, while I hate ads everywhere else and install ad blockers on all my devices. The sponsored filters tend to be really fun, and I end up sending and receiving multiple pictures over the course of the day that used the sponsored filter.

And the ads in Vice, Buzzfeed, and other stories are well crafted to fit in with the content. The ads feel like snaps from friends, rather than the spammy, low quality crap that you see in other places on the internet.

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have awkward, disruptive ad systems, but Snapchat already has a successful ad system that people actually enjoy interacting with, and that is amazing.

Post reply on HN