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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

#81

Post by dpandya »

niftich wrote: post #65
exogeny wrote: post #30

Snap suffers from a fundamental paradox, one that is difficult for me to imagine an easy way to solve. They've made their bones by being a uniquely fun and social way of a certain subset of the population to share their lives without parents dipping their head in and seeing what they're doing, ala Facebook. The UI is designed to generally support this; it is confusing and messy and understandable only by someone who…

It's not about the size of the userbase; it's about business models. They burned cash to acquire users, but once they wanted income they too have gone the advertising route. This leads to the dilution of the core experience as you've pointed out: fudged timelines [1], denser advertising, backporting of missing social networking features, leading to networks that are largely interchangeable [2]. Snapchat can't really…

What kind of other models could potentially work for Snapchat other than advertising? I don't see any candidates from the list of other companies that serve young consumers.

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

#82

Post by dpandya »

noncoml wrote: post #39
exogeny wrote: post #30

Snap suffers from a fundamental paradox, one that is difficult for me to imagine an easy way to solve. They've made their bones by being a uniquely fun and social way of a certain subset of the population to share their lives without parents dipping their head in and seeing what they're doing, ala Facebook. The UI is designed to generally support this; it is confusing and messy and understandable only by someone who…

> how to sell ads Why are we so obsessed with the ads model. Why not start charging? This is not a web app, where you have to take out your wallet and enter your CC info; all it takes is the scan of your fingerprint. I am sure people wouldn't mind paying a certain amount per year to keep using the app without creepy apps. Sure, the revenue will be capped by the amount per year a user is willing to pay, but maybe the…

> I am sure people wouldn't mind paying a certain amount per year to keep using the app without creepy apps.

I really don't think this is the case. For the demographic that currently uses Snapchats (mostly 18 to 24 year-olds), paying for mobile software at all is a pretty significant behavior change.

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

#83

Post by timthelion »

dpandya wrote: post #81
niftich wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the size of the userbase; it's about business models. They burned cash to acquire users, but once they wanted income they too have gone the advertising route. This leads to the dilution of the core experience as you've pointed out: fudged timelines [1], denser advertising, backporting of missing social networking features, leading to networks that are largely interchangeable [2]. Snapchat can't really…

What kind of other models could potentially work for Snapchat other than advertising? I don't see any candidates from the list of other companies that serve young consumers.

I would create an extension to the snap ecosystem, which would be called "snap graffiti". Snap graffiti would allow you to attach a geographic location to a picture. These pictures could be anything, and anyone could see the pictures by being near the location. They would only hang on to the location for a certain amount of time. This in and of itself is not a business plan. But I would then allow these pictures to be connected to economic activity. For example, I have a bunch of iron pipes in my garden which could be taken to the waste disposal arena. Any teenager could do this for me just by carying away the metal. I would be able to "snap graffiti" the pile of metal in my garden, and tag it with $5. A bored teen could then knock on my door and carry away the metal. They would get $4.50 and snap-chat would take a small service fee.

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

#85

Post by noncoml »

dpandya wrote: post #82
noncoml wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how to sell ads Why are we so obsessed with the ads model. Why not start charging? This is not a web app, where you have to take out your wallet and enter your CC info; all it takes is the scan of your fingerprint. I am sure people wouldn't mind paying a certain amount per year to keep using the app without creepy apps. Sure, the revenue will be capped by the amount per year a user is willing to pay, but maybe the…

> I am sure people wouldn't mind paying a certain amount per year to keep using the app without creepy apps. I really don't think this is the case. For the demographic that currently uses Snapchats (mostly 18 to 24 year-olds), paying for mobile software at all is a pretty significant behavior change.

It doesn’t have to be subscription or pay to download. You have the user looking at your App 12 hours a day. Be innovative on how to extract money from them.

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

#86

Post by amigoingtodie »

dpandya wrote: post #81
niftich wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the size of the userbase; it's about business models. They burned cash to acquire users, but once they wanted income they too have gone the advertising route. This leads to the dilution of the core experience as you've pointed out: fudged timelines [1], denser advertising, backporting of missing social networking features, leading to networks that are largely interchangeable [2]. Snapchat can't really…

What kind of other models could potentially work for Snapchat other than advertising? I don't see any candidates from the list of other companies that serve young consumers.

Patronage for amateur adult NSFW content.

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

#87

Post by amigoingtodie »

dpandya wrote: post #82
noncoml wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how to sell ads Why are we so obsessed with the ads model. Why not start charging? This is not a web app, where you have to take out your wallet and enter your CC info; all it takes is the scan of your fingerprint. I am sure people wouldn't mind paying a certain amount per year to keep using the app without creepy apps. Sure, the revenue will be capped by the amount per year a user is willing to pay, but maybe the…

> I am sure people wouldn't mind paying a certain amount per year to keep using the app without creepy apps. I really don't think this is the case. For the demographic that currently uses Snapchats (mostly 18 to 24 year-olds), paying for mobile software at all is a pretty significant behavior change.

Where are you getting your demographic info for SNAP from?

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

#88

Post by fullshark »

randoman wrote: post #71
nemothekid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Snaps core demo likely doesn’t have the discretionary income to pay for a social network. 2. Snaps main competitor would have a far lower barrier to entry - free 3. If all your friends can’t pay for Snap, you will likely move regardless if you are a paying customer. Why would I pay for a network with 80% of my friends when I can use a near clone with 100% of my friends. 4. Facebook nearly $7/user a month with an a…

Snap's ARPU is about $1 per quarter. Surely the core demo can afford even a 100% markup on that? My problem with any ad model is it incentivises the maximisation of views/engagement that allow for more/stickier ad impressions which means a proliferation of viral/tabloid/divisive content like youtube/snap/facebook. Once that incentive can be minimised, the incentive to provide quality product that users then feel will…

The second they charge, 75% of users go to Instagram and don’t come back.

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

#89

Post by fullshark »

cft wrote: post #36

That means that FB was probably the last "web" or "app" big IPO. Now it's Amazon, Google or Facebook. Even Yelp is withering. Just like it has been impossible to start a new car or airliner manufacturer since the 1920s (except for Tesla), the opportunity for creating new large web companies has been shut by the entrenched trio.

Uber?

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

#90

Post by niftich »

dpandya wrote: post #81
niftich wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the size of the userbase; it's about business models. They burned cash to acquire users, but once they wanted income they too have gone the advertising route. This leads to the dilution of the core experience as you've pointed out: fudged timelines [1], denser advertising, backporting of missing social networking features, leading to networks that are largely interchangeable [2]. Snapchat can't really…

What kind of other models could potentially work for Snapchat other than advertising? I don't see any candidates from the list of other companies that serve young consumers.

At a not-even-breaking-new-ground level:

1. they could meld the treasure-hunt aspect of Pokemon Go with sponsored hyperlocal recommendations. ARGs (alternate reality games) are popular with Snapchat's core demographic, and if Snap could pitch itself as a platform for ARGs, their advertising woes would disappear.

2. microtransactions familiar from Asian messaging apps: cosmetic stuff like stickers, emoji packs, backgrounds, filters, etc

3. (macro-)transactions for large-scale content inside of Snapchat. Facebook had entire video games playable within it; there is no reason Snapchat can't do this. There is a market for VIP access for 'private' Snapchats of celebrities and creators, but today this is arranged out-of-band, because Snapchat provides no support for this in-app. Patreon was able to make headway in this underserved market.

4. Snapcash could compete with Paypal, but it's vastly overemphasized.

5. Snap Map has so much potential, and it's unexploited. From mundane to exotic, opportunities include location search, sponsored recommendations, user-generated content about real-life places (cf. Yelp), user matching for transactions (cf. Uber), user-generated content anchored in virtual space (AR stuff)...

6. Subscriptions. Either to gate specific content or features, or just for the sake of. Discord has a sponsor tier that gives a few perks but is just as much for the sake of providing support. There is always a subset of users who will pay.

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