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Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

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Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#11

Post by Analemma_ »

doublerebel wrote: post #10

I still think Snap is a good long play because so far they are the only social network to "get" Augmented Reality. Google has already had multiple AR missteps (Glass, Tango, Pokemon Go via Niantic), Facebook is playing AR copycat, Microsoft's AR is targeting big industry. Snap's entertainment experience puts the viewer in the center of the action, similar to VR 360° experiences and Spectacles is a direct expression o…

Apple just commoditized AR by adding it as a set of iOS APIs that anyone can use, so that's an awfully shallow moat for Snap to rely on.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#12

Post by str33t_punk »

tinbucket wrote: post #9
deftturtle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snapchat is very confusing and poorly designed. 100% agree with you on the intuition part. But I don't think spectacles really has much influence on future of company; that is, Snapchat will fail or succeed for other reasons entirely. It might look expensive on paper, but the glasses project is more of a marketing stunt than a mass market product. If people don't want to use Snapchat, they won't use a device that is…

> and it's got the sexual harassment aspect, > too. Many many female friends of > mine receive unwanted dick pics. Same here. If I was in charge of Snapchat I'd be working on some way of automatically identifying and killing those images in-flight, and banning people who sent them repeatedly.

But many use Snapchat for legitimate non-harassment sexting. What you would need to do is combine this with a reporting feature. That way those using Snapchat for it's originally purpose don't get banned along with the unwanted dick-pic-sender crowd

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#13

Post by doublerebel »

Analemma_ wrote: post #11
doublerebel wrote: post #10

I still think Snap is a good long play because so far they are the only social network to "get" Augmented Reality. Google has already had multiple AR missteps (Glass, Tango, Pokemon Go via Niantic), Facebook is playing AR copycat, Microsoft's AR is targeting big industry. Snap's entertainment experience puts the viewer in the center of the action, similar to VR 360° experiences and Spectacles is a direct expression o…

Apple just commoditized AR by adding it as a set of iOS APIs that anyone can use, so that's an awfully shallow moat for Snap to rely on.

Adding filters to a camera is a very different market compared to sustaining a social network on it. Look at Hipstamatic vs Instagram.

It's not just creating a feature, it's understanding why someone would want to use it. That's the difference between a product and a business.

Most of HN is too old and otherwise not the Snap demographic. How many of you actually use Snapchat with your friends and watch the videos with your headphones in? The experience is key -- the business facets being analyzed are a symptom of the experience.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#15

Post by willmw101 »

doublerebel wrote: post #10

I still think Snap is a good long play because so far they are the only social network to "get" Augmented Reality. Google has already had multiple AR missteps (Glass, Tango, Pokemon Go via Niantic), Facebook is playing AR copycat, Microsoft's AR is targeting big industry. Snap's entertainment experience puts the viewer in the center of the action, similar to VR 360° experiences and Spectacles is a direct expression o…

Pokemon Go probably shouldn't be considered a misstep given it surpassed $1.2b in revenue and over 750 million downloads earlier this summer. Also as another poster notes below, AR is pretty wide open with both Instagram (FB) finding success with the exact same AR features/lenses as Snap, as well as apple integrating AI in to their most recent iOS release.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#16

Post by rm999 »

doublerebel wrote: post #10

I still think Snap is a good long play because so far they are the only social network to "get" Augmented Reality. Google has already had multiple AR missteps (Glass, Tango, Pokemon Go via Niantic), Facebook is playing AR copycat, Microsoft's AR is targeting big industry. Snap's entertainment experience puts the viewer in the center of the action, similar to VR 360° experiences and Spectacles is a direct expression o…

First, that's a feature, not a product.

Second, there's no barrier to entry there. Facebook's ~10000 engineers can recreate features with amazing swiftness, do it better than the first movers, then spread the feature quickly through its 1 billion+ user social network. If Facebook wants to beat snapchat at the AR game, they will do it when they feel like it.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/13/instagram-stories-bigger-t...

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#17

Post by econner »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Two bits which caught my attention: "[Evan Spiegel] has dismissed ideas that rely heavily on data, according to people who have worked with him. He prefers to study the experience of users for cues on revisions and new features, some of the people said. ... One banker involved in the IPO said he thought the lack of voting shares and other decisions could imperil the company’s standing with investors, possibly hurting…

The first point could be likened to the Apple vs. Google design model.

Google: "Test 36 shades of blue and choose the one that performs best"

Apple: "Create beautiful product based on user experience and then convince you that you like it."

I don't think making all product decisions based on data is necessarily good, nor is designing in a vacuum.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#18

Post by hi5eyes »

aphextron wrote: post #7

I think Snap is doing the best pure "Social Media" experience of any service right now. Whether or not that can really be monetized without becoming another Facebook is a different story.

except snapchat has been effectively locking out and leading on android users. they're making a whole new app just to get some android users back because instagram is absolutely murdering them

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#19

Post by rjromero »

ISL wrote: post #6
deftturtle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snapchat is very confusing and poorly designed. 100% agree with you on the intuition part. But I don't think spectacles really has much influence on future of company; that is, Snapchat will fail or succeed for other reasons entirely. It might look expensive on paper, but the glasses project is more of a marketing stunt than a mass market product. If people don't want to use Snapchat, they won't use a device that is…

Would $5 have been too big a barrier-to-entry for the youngest Snapchatters?

Absolutely, this new generation of kids don't want to pay for anything on the App Store. Maybe the generation of ~5 or so years ago that had a stockpile of iTunes Gift Cards from Christmas did so, but the attitude towards paid applications seems very different now, at least from what I've seen with my younger cousins.

Re: Snap’s Rise and Fall: How a Big, Splashy IPO Prompted the Doubters to Keep Mum

#20

Post by mrtksn »

hi5eyes wrote: post #18
aphextron wrote: post #7

I think Snap is doing the best pure "Social Media" experience of any service right now. Whether or not that can really be monetized without becoming another Facebook is a different story.

except snapchat has been effectively locking out and leading on android users. they're making a whole new app just to get some android users back because instagram is absolutely murdering them

what's wrong with the current android app?
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