Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they already had a round of layoffs focused on engineers.
It says in the article they did, yeah. Still a bizarre amount left in my opinion. I can't imagine what they do all day.
Implement new filters?
Snap is laying off 100 employees mostly in advertising and sales
11–20 of 32 posts
Re: Snap is laying off 100 employees mostly in advertising and sales
#12Growth rarely lasts forever, and Snap had more employees than generally considered reasonable with such a single-purpose app. I'm surprised they aren't laying off more engineers though, personally.
Agreed. Comparing Snap to other companies with similar # of employees, it really shows how bloated the company is especially since there is only _so_ much you can work on with a single purpose app. I wonder if their decentralized office tactic helped lead to this?
Re: Snap is laying off 100 employees mostly in advertising and sales
#13So, redesigning a barely useable UI, making it harder to use and prioritizes unrelated ads is bad for business?
Wow, TIL
Re: Snap is laying off 100 employees mostly in advertising and sales
#14Growth rarely lasts forever, and Snap had more employees than generally considered reasonable with such a single-purpose app. I'm surprised they aren't laying off more engineers though, personally.
they still need them to make a ui change that users might actually like.
I think Snapchat and users have opposite views on what the UI should be:
Snapchat want to show the maximum of sponsored contents to the users (BTW it took me a week to stop swiping right by reflex after the update) and users just want to send pics to theirs friends.
I know that my usage of Snapchat is anecdotal. If anyone has data on the percentage of users that voluntary look at sponsored content, I'm interested.
Re: Snap is laying off 100 employees mostly in advertising and sales
#15This seems particularly alarming for Snap - they badly need a coherent go to market strategy and client relationships. IMO They need to work hard on a clear business model and ramp up sales against that, not fire the sales people for terrible strategy...
How should we view these layoffs in comparison to say the ones done by twitter? They did a bunch of layoffs a year or so ago and it’s market cap has recovered significantly since then. The first wave of layoffs Snap did were related to the hw engineering org. AKA those glasses they mad, right? They were a commercial failure and a distraction so I viewed that as largely a positive sign. This wave of layoffs seems like…
The thing is stories was never Snap's core product. If you remember back when SC first came out, there were no stories at all... although they had a "select all" button for firing off snaps to your entire friends list.
Refer to Snap's S-1 filing[1]: 60% of daily active users send snaps daily, but only 25% of them post to their story.
As far as I'm concerned, Insta et al are welcome to "stories" clones. Stories aren't what I, or most users, use Snapchat for.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564408/000119312517...
Re: Snap is laying off 100 employees mostly in advertising and sales
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
they still need them to make a ui change that users might actually like.
I think Snapchat and users have opposite views on what the UI should be: Snapchat want to show the maximum of sponsored contents to the users (BTW it took me a week to stop swiping right by reflex after the update) and users just want to send pics to theirs friends. I know that my usage of Snapchat is anecdotal. If anyone has data on the percentage of users that voluntary look at sponsored content, I'm interested.
>Snapchat want to show the maximum of sponsored content
Yet, with this latest update, they removed the stories/sponsored mixture and banished sponsored content to its own screen. Once you get over the habit of swiping right, you never have to open that screen again... if anything, they reduced the amount of sponsored content I see.
Re: Snap is laying off 100 employees mostly in advertising and sales
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
they still need them to make a ui change that users might actually like.
I think Snapchat and users have opposite views on what the UI should be: Snapchat want to show the maximum of sponsored contents to the users (BTW it took me a week to stop swiping right by reflex after the update) and users just want to send pics to theirs friends. I know that my usage of Snapchat is anecdotal. If anyone has data on the percentage of users that voluntary look at sponsored content, I'm interested.
Well, at least they were kind enough to completely split up the sponsored content (right screen) from user content (left screen). With the update I entirely stopped viewing sponsored content, aside from the occasional ad when viewing stories. An interesting side effect is half of the ui is entirely useless now, which leads to a strange ux, but still better than interleaving everything (ie facebook, instagram, twitter, etc.).
Re: Snap is laying off 100 employees mostly in advertising and sales
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Snapchat and users have opposite views on what the UI should be: Snapchat want to show the maximum of sponsored contents to the users (BTW it took me a week to stop swiping right by reflex after the update) and users just want to send pics to theirs friends. I know that my usage of Snapchat is anecdotal. If anyone has data on the percentage of users that voluntary look at sponsored content, I'm interested.
>Snapchat want to show the maximum of sponsored content Yet, with this latest update, they removed the stories/sponsored mixture and banished sponsored content to its own screen. Once you get over the habit of swiping right, you never have to open that screen again... if anything, they reduced the amount of sponsored content I see.
But now you see ads between stories. I don't remember if they introduced that with the update or before.
Re: Snap is laying off 100 employees mostly in advertising and sales
#19One look at the content on the "Discovery" page and you instantly understand the platform's weakness. No one is making genuine, useful, compelling content. It's almost exclusively hyper-vapid garbage.
Re: Snap is laying off 100 employees mostly in advertising and sales
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
How should we view these layoffs in comparison to say the ones done by twitter? They did a bunch of layoffs a year or so ago and it’s market cap has recovered significantly since then. The first wave of layoffs Snap did were related to the hw engineering org. AKA those glasses they mad, right? They were a commercial failure and a distraction so I viewed that as largely a positive sign. This wave of layoffs seems like…
The thing is stories was never Snap's core product. If you remember back when SC first came out, there were no stories at all... although they had a "select all" button for firing off snaps to your entire friends list. Refer to Snap's S-1 filing[1]: 60% of daily active users send snaps daily, but only 25% of them post to their story. As far as I'm concerned, Insta et al are welcome to "stories" clones. Stories aren't…
Right, it wasn’t their core product but it was a thing that had a clearer monetization strategy.
As far as I can tell no one has figured out a way to monetize private DM/group messaging via advertising. I actually deleted Facebook messenger from my phone in disgust a while back the first time I saw an advertisement mixed in among my list of conversations; I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have ads directly inserted in the messaging flow.