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

Why I love Snapchat

justinkan.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 176 posts

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#61

Post by toomanybeersies »

soneca wrote: post #3

"The cost of content creation is extremely low, and Snapchat makes it fun to think about what aspects of what I’m doing every day might be cool for other people to see." But what is the reward of content creation? Honest question. How do a user feel their effort in posting was worthy? I never used Snapchat, so I don't get it much. Although I'm for sure not dismissive as some, I just never tried it.

I don't believe that Snapchat offers content creation. Given that nothing actually persists, is it really content? I feel that it's content as much as small talk with a coworker is content, it's more filler than anything actually substantial.

Now if I was to have a discussion about some technical issue or whatever, that would be creating content, but Snapchat is hardly the ideal, or indeed a feasible platform for that.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#62

Post by goldenchrome »

I don't know what to say. I think OP did a good job of explaining what makes Snapchat so great, but their initial confusion and the confusion from the commenters within this thread boggles me. Recently I was in a room with a well-known VC who wouldn't believe a college student who said that they enjoy using Snapchat, as if they couldn't comprehend how anyone would like it.

Virtually all the comments are about how Snapchat confuses them and that there must be something seriously wrong with it. And yet the app is immensely popular. If you're one of those people, then Snapchat is not really made for you.

You might be able to understand why Snapchat is a beloved app by reading a report about what the millennials are up to these days but I encourage anyone dealing with this confusion to make an effort to talk to people outside of your normal social circles once in a while. This kind of empathy with others will make you much more effective when you're creating for people who are not like you.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#63

Post by squeaky-clean »

winsome wrote: post #58
squeaky-clean wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I hate most are the ton of features which are supposed to be "discoverable." Or in other words, you have no idea they exist until someone else tells you about it (and how did they find out)? For example, aside from the traditional way of adding a friend, you can point your camera, in Snapchat, at someone else's phone displaying the profile screen, and it will automatically add them as a friend. Only one other pe…

Here's one you can go tell other people about: You don't have to hold your finger on the screen while video chatting. If you drag your finger up or down towards a corner, a lock icon will show up that allows you to remove your finger. https://support.snapchat.com/a/video-chat

Thanks for helping prove my point and teaching me something I wish I had known earlier!

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#65

Post by ethagknight »

I love Snapchat Stories. I always have a minute's worth of video in my story. I love it because, unlike Twitter, Facebook/Instagram and the rest, I can overpost to my hearts content, and people can totally ignore it if they want to. Most of my family does the same, and its fun to see. I can post videos of my children doing stupid things that no one cares about or wants to see but my parents and grandparents. Oh, thats another thing: when I tell people I love Snapchat, they assume "heh, for sexting?" Well, no, my whole family, including my 60 y.o. parents and 80 year old grandparent are on Snapchat and love seeing videos of my family's activities or stupid stuff we do. The barrier for whats acceptable to post is much lower, like toddlers running through the house naked and whatnot. And it goes away. (well, probably not technically, so I wouldn't post anything that you wouldn't be generally cool with accidentally getting broadcast somehow).

But most the time, I post interesting-but-uncurated little snippets throughout the day that I think are funny or odd, and I usually get a few random comments from friends and family, and its generally fun, frictionless and competition-less way to share without all the 'like' or friend quantifiers. Occasionally a post gets upgraded to twitter for broadcast.

I also initially enjoyed the city stories, where random regular people from, say, Doha or Abu Dhabi or Kuala Lumpur post videos of their daily lives. Cool to see how people live on the other side of the world. Eventually got bored with it, but cool concept.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#67

Post by zyxley »

Snapchat is the first app that makes me feel like an old man shaking my fist at the young hooligans on the lawn. The abtruse interface leaves me tremendously baffled.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#68

Post by angryasian »

ethagknight wrote: post #65

I love Snapchat Stories. I always have a minute's worth of video in my story. I love it because, unlike Twitter, Facebook/Instagram and the rest, I can overpost to my hearts content, and people can totally ignore it if they want to. Most of my family does the same, and its fun to see. I can post videos of my children doing stupid things that no one cares about or wants to see but my parents and grandparents. Oh, that…

Out of curiosity, Im not user so this might be ignorant, but why can't people ignore your posts on Twitter, Facebook/Instagram. Are you just referring to notifications ?

I do get the point of the psychological barrier and the problem of broadcasting likes, retweets, comments etc. I think some people will say "what if no one responds" then why would I put this out there, and stop them from putting out something that might be interesting.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#69

Post by JeremyMorgan »

onewaystreet wrote: post #50
minimaxir wrote: post #12

The problem I have with Snapchat is that there are many deliberate, counterintuitive UI/UX decisions which make the app hard to use. This causes a lot of bad post-hoc rationalization from many startups that "Snapchat is a multibillion dollar startup, and they have these bad UX features, therefore if we have these X features we will be successful too!" And thus the startup ecosystem as a whole gets dragged down.

I often see people over 20 complain about Snapchat's UI/UX, and yet the app has millions of daily users. I don't think it's successful in spite of its UI/UX, so there is something to be learned there if you are developing a new social app.

Yup. 38 here, and I can barely use it. My teenage daughters do it just fine (they were the ones who talked me into signing up). Although I am very technical the UI kills me. As a teen I think there are less mental barriers, assumptions and the like who picked it up just like I picked up DOS and Windows 3.1 when I was a teenager.

Re: Why I love Snapchat

#70

Post by JeremyMorgan »

onewaystreet wrote: post #50
minimaxir wrote: post #12

The problem I have with Snapchat is that there are many deliberate, counterintuitive UI/UX decisions which make the app hard to use. This causes a lot of bad post-hoc rationalization from many startups that "Snapchat is a multibillion dollar startup, and they have these bad UX features, therefore if we have these X features we will be successful too!" And thus the startup ecosystem as a whole gets dragged down.

I often see people over 20 complain about Snapchat's UI/UX, and yet the app has millions of daily users. I don't think it's successful in spite of its UI/UX, so there is something to be learned there if you are developing a new social app.

Also, I think you actually validated minimaxir's point. The app succeeded with crappy UI/UX and that sets an example to others: "hey you don't have to build good UX". It's dangerous.
Post reply on HN