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

Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 369 posts

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#161

Post by giarc »

InternetUser wrote: post #27
doc_holliday wrote: post #3

I know that the Snapchat platform is worth something, it has high engagement and adoption of 18-24 year old age segment, and that is worth a lot in terms of attention and advertising $s. However, this just feels completely out of proportion to earnings and downside does not seem priced in. Willing to be proved wrong of course, but especially seeing as they are non voting shares, I cannot understand this pricing.

And that's not their only product: Bitmoji has been the #1 iPhone app overall since January 11, and it was already the #1 iPhone Utility app since July 22, 2016 (Log in to see) - https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/app/bitmoji-keyboard-your-... https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/top/united-states/overall/... And yesterday on eBay, 22 pairs of Spectacles were sold, with one pair went for $229 and 2 others went for $200 e…

Regarding the Spectacles. They only fetch those prices due to scarcity. If Snap made them available to a more wider audience, people wouldn't be buying them on eBay.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#162

Post by Apocryphon »

overcast wrote: post #160
zachgersh wrote: post #58

My favorite tweet about the whole situation: https://twitter.com/objective_neo/status/736530568222015489

That was my sentiment five years ago for Instagram. 9 Apr 2012 2008:Sun buys MySQL for $1B. 2012:Facebook buys Instagram for $1B. DB tech running half the web+revenue vs hipster photo filter app+no rev.

To be fair, you didn't take into account the difference that $1B was worth between those times. Not just inflation, but the economic situation in 2008 as well.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#163

Post by giarc »

sgwealti wrote: post #22

I'm a light snapchat user (send/receive ~100 snaps/week and post to my story every 3-4 days) and I have a question about its value as an advertising platform. I always skip the ads, and I don't know anyone else who uses snapchat who does't immediately skip the ads. When I do this, is it counted as an impression? I can't imagine advertisers would be happy to know that the ads can be skipped. Also I never use the Disco…

I imagine it would be similar to Youtube's model.

>A view is counted when someone watches 30 seconds of your video ad (or the duration if it's shorter than 30 seconds) or interacts with the ad, whichever comes first.

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2472735

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#164

Post by numbchuckskills »

cspags wrote: post #23
sgwealti wrote: post #22

I'm a light snapchat user (send/receive ~100 snaps/week and post to my story every 3-4 days) and I have a question about its value as an advertising platform. I always skip the ads, and I don't know anyone else who uses snapchat who does't immediately skip the ads. When I do this, is it counted as an impression? I can't imagine advertisers would be happy to know that the ads can be skipped. Also I never use the Disco…

I've wondered this as well, but my guess is that they'll go the Youtube route and make the ads less and less skippable over time.

YouTube is going the opposite direction: http://www.post-gazette.com/business/tech-news/2017/02/21/Go...

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#166

Post by Apocryphon »

zach417 wrote: post #101
capkutay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand how the existence of [any company ever] adds over [their current valuation] of utility to the economy; furthermore, if [company] fell of the face of the earth, everyone would just switch to [their competitor], and life would resume ut fit. Peter Thiel's quote should be updated: We wanted flying cars, instead we got 1̶4̶0̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶a̶c̶t̶e̶r̶s [trivialization of product's value]. These comments su…

I had removed the last part from the comment as to seem less trollish, so please forgive me for coming across as such. Anyway, since you asked, here is my formalized argument: (1) [falsifiable axiom] You cannot have meaningful economic growth without technological innovation. Technological innovation is improving the efficiency of existing resources or increasing the availability of resources as compared to previous…

Kids like it. Shouldn't that count for something? You might as well question why video games, or professional sports, or Hollywood, or any other form of commercial entertainment generates so much money.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#167

Post by Apocryphon »

fjdlwlv wrote: post #146
jboggan wrote: post #114

Santa Monica and Venice are going to get even more expensive in 6 months.

Snap is now trying to grow out of Venice because they've already businified/gentrified/grown too much and are getting a lot of local hate

Makes me wonder if Spiegel will bite the bullet and open up a SV office, like Tinder has.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#168

Post by vecter »

ashark wrote: post #136
linuxkerneldev wrote: post #34

This $27.8 billion dollar valuation tells me that somewhere along the line, my job and lifestyle have caused me to detach from a significant chunk of society. I've never used Snap or their platform. I don't even really know what the benefit of their service. I am curious if I'm in the minority or if there's lots of developers like me who aren't able to comprehend these valuations.

The two single guys in my circle of friends use it for the kinds of communication you wouldn't want to occur in the same app where your relatives are (say, Facebook/Whatsapp). One of them's outside the app's usual age demo but is definitely around them enough that it's a very valuable app for him (network effects—everyone at any given bar has it and you'll have much greater success connecting with them over Snapchat…

The vast vast vast majority of snaps are not nudes or drunken debauchery. Most of them are just mundane moments of life: I saw a building while walking down the street, or, here's my lunch.

Snapchat is useful and popular because it is a way for people to say hi to their friends without having anything to say. You just take a selfie with a filter, make a face, and you're done. This lets you feel close to your friends without having the pressure of actually having a conversation topic.

The genius of Snapchat is that because photos are ephemeral, the bar to create content is as low as it gets, which results in orders of magnitudes of more content creation and sharing compared to platforms like Instagram. On Instagram, you spend all of your time obsessing over the perfectly angled and filtered photo, hoping to get as many likes as possible. As a result, you'll post on Instagram once a week, but you'll post 5 times a day to snapchat. That's a two-orders magnitude of difference in usage, which is why Snapchat is so successful.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#169

Post by Apocryphon »

jonknee wrote: post #123
got2surf wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. I know it's not the best comparison feature-wise, but look at the public reaction to Google Glass vs Snap Spectacles. Snap understands how to make the product sexy, not just tech-sexy. Snap understands how to make their innovation fit into the lifestyle of their users. Anecdotally, it's been interesting to see GoPro take off over the years, spreading from "extreme sports pros" at the beginning to include…

That might not be the best comparison... GoPro is fighting for life and if it's not acquired by Snap it may not be long for this world.

The company might not be doing well but their product is solid. If they don't figure it out, GoPro is going to be acquired by someone, that's for certain.

Re: Snap Jumps in Debut After App Maker Raises $3.4B in IPO

#170

Post by briantmaurer »

moolcool wrote: post #78
pibefision wrote: post #4

Reminds me of Twitter IPO... just wait.

I think this will be worse. Snapchat isn't nearly as culturally sticky as Twitter. Sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have a robust friend/follower system, and users have a huge backlog of things they contributed to the platforms. No contributions on Snapchat last more than a single day, so what is motivating users to stay on the platform instead of using Facebook or Instagram's offerings? Their friends list…

This isn't entirely true – Snapchat already has features that let you save content permanently.
Post reply on HN