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Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

bloomberg.com

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Re: Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

#31

Post by aaronbrethorst »

curiously wrote: post #28

How do you monetize a large user base without credit cards? How would they get teens to get their parents to pay for the ability to send nude pics to their friends? Meanwhile, millions of small businesses paying $10 a month for secure document shredding with years of increasing profit remains large ignored by the media, nobody bats an eye. Nobody puts an insane valuation on it because it's not cool. So business is no…

I would be insanely grateful to fly under the radar like that, were I the owner of a business that had millions of paying customers. Let the media crow about Snapchat all they want, and dry your tears on hundred dollar bills.

Re: Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

#32

Post by austinhutch »

curiously wrote: post #28

How do you monetize a large user base without credit cards? How would they get teens to get their parents to pay for the ability to send nude pics to their friends? Meanwhile, millions of small businesses paying $10 a month for secure document shredding with years of increasing profit remains large ignored by the media, nobody bats an eye. Nobody puts an insane valuation on it because it's not cool. So business is no…

The majority of ad $ spend has been in TV. It's not because there was a credit card reader on each TV, but because there was not a better way to get that kind of wide exposure. There is tons of money transitioning from TV to other areas.

Re: Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

#33

Post by spigoon »

curiously wrote: post #28

How do you monetize a large user base without credit cards? How would they get teens to get their parents to pay for the ability to send nude pics to their friends? Meanwhile, millions of small businesses paying $10 a month for secure document shredding with years of increasing profit remains large ignored by the media, nobody bats an eye. Nobody puts an insane valuation on it because it's not cool. So business is no…

  How do you monetize a large user base without credit cards?
Ask Facebook. With Snapchat's curated "Our Story" stream it would be easy for them to superimpose a brand's logo on top of snaps that would get viewed by an audience that fits a particular demographic. I'd wager that companies see value in that.

Re: Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

#34

Post by jqueryin »

moe wrote: post #26

And snapchat plans to make money how? Plus, at least in europe kik and viber seem a lot more popular than snapchat. And it would take them about an afternoon to add a "self destruct" checkbox to their image and video dialogs... I can understand yahoo desperately wanting to get a foot down "with the cool kids". But 10 billion, seriously?

Shared revenue of sponsored story promotions/snaps would be one way. Think of this:

Create a marketplace around big businesses getting viral content producers to push their products subtly (Truman Show anyone?). Snapchat, acting as the intermediary and service provider, can collect a percentage of the promotional gig in return for facilitating the transaction and acting as an escrow service or middleman. It's not so different from television ads now, just a broader market with lots more content producers that have large fanbases across demographics TV just doesn't have.

Re: Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

#35

Post by trhway »

>Users send more than 700 million disappearing “snaps” a day and more than 500 million stories viewed daily

well, in Internet dollars - $100/user of FB and the likes - 70M users is $7B scale. 500M exposures point to the same ballpark - the ballpark where it doesn't really matter whether it is $5B or $10B valuation. Even 10 fold growth would bring Yahoo only $200M - peanuts, and obviously Yahoo makes that investment not for money, it is just a cover fee for entry into the club.

Re: Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

#36

Post by increment_i »

spigoon wrote: post #33
curiously wrote: post #28

How do you monetize a large user base without credit cards? How would they get teens to get their parents to pay for the ability to send nude pics to their friends? Meanwhile, millions of small businesses paying $10 a month for secure document shredding with years of increasing profit remains large ignored by the media, nobody bats an eye. Nobody puts an insane valuation on it because it's not cool. So business is no…

How do you monetize a large user base without credit cards? Ask Facebook. With Snapchat's curated "Our Story" stream it would be easy for them to superimpose a brand's logo on top of snaps that would get viewed by an audience that fits a particular demographic. I'd wager that companies see value in that.

I'd agree with that. You have to have a market's attention before the sell -- whatever that may be -- and Snapchat has that right now. I think this particularly applies to younger markets. For example, when I was a kid cartoons were basically 30 minute advertisements for toys and games. And you had better believe I let my parents know those toys were must haves. Snapchat might be in the best position to be that platform for the teenage market, a new MTV if you will.

Re: Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

#37

Post by gaius »

spigoon wrote: post #33
curiously wrote: post #28

How do you monetize a large user base without credit cards? How would they get teens to get their parents to pay for the ability to send nude pics to their friends? Meanwhile, millions of small businesses paying $10 a month for secure document shredding with years of increasing profit remains large ignored by the media, nobody bats an eye. Nobody puts an insane valuation on it because it's not cool. So business is no…

How do you monetize a large user base without credit cards? Ask Facebook. With Snapchat's curated "Our Story" stream it would be easy for them to superimpose a brand's logo on top of snaps that would get viewed by an audience that fits a particular demographic. I'd wager that companies see value in that.

Yeah it would be like subliminal messaging, like they used to do in cinemas. Remind me why they stopped?

Re: Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

#38

Post by tvhiggins »

mililani wrote: post #27

Reading things like this kinda depresses me. I guess I just don't understand what makes things popular on the web. I mean, I would have never thought things like Twitter, Instagram, all of the various messaging apps would ever get this much traction. I think it's bizarre.

switching cost for the users on all these platforms is essentially nothing, which would scare me off as an investor

Re: Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

#39

Post by gaius »

mmxiii wrote: post #29
mililani wrote: post #27

Reading things like this kinda depresses me. I guess I just don't understand what makes things popular on the web. I mean, I would have never thought things like Twitter, Instagram, all of the various messaging apps would ever get this much traction. I think it's bizarre.

The mistake here is that you are conflating your subjective preference with reality. You are implicitly evaluating something against your own context, but to understand why twitter,etc are successful, you need to ask questions about what OTHER people value, and why they do it.

You say that, but it is the same as the dotcom days, everyone thought it was a "new economy", yadda yadda. Right now, ALL these investments are highly speculative. Any of these companies could do a MySpace overnight.

Re: Yahoo Close to Investing in Snapchat at $10B Value

#40

Post by giarc »

wahsd wrote: post #19
NewHermes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a 23 year old at a large state school and I can tell you that snapchat is definitely the most popular social media app on campus. It has completely replaced texting for a lot of my peers and in my opinion is best way to flirt electronically. Twitter and instagram are tied for second, with Facebook coming in last. For what its worth, meeting someone who isn't on snapchat is unheard of, but I haven't added anyone…

I feel like Facebook is flaming out. Do you get that sense too?

Maybe, however for me, I haven't found anything that has replaced full albums of events (vacation, wedding, new baby). Or atleast haven't found anything that has had enough adoption to justify me leaving FB.
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