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Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

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Re: Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

#61

Post by rblatz »

bkjelden wrote: post #40
lowglow wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook does feel like it is dying though. 1. A lot of my friends are leaving facebook 2. A lot of my dev friends no longer build on facebook's platform 3. Most of the young kids I know have moved to Snapchat. 4. Most of the older kids I know hang out on Instagram. 5. All the friends that worked at facebook have left to go work elsewhere.

I don't notice my friends leaving and I feel like it's dying too. The content just feels so manufactured and empty. About 80% of my news feed is: 1) Friend X liked a photo of someone I've never met and likely never will meet 2) A recipe video that I would never make, or some household 'lifehack' I would never use. 3) Meaningless images - 'Happy Friday', 'Share if you hate winter', 'Like if you love Christmas', etc. T…

I've long wished for a way to filter out all the "viral" share junk people post. I am on Facebook to stay connected to friends not to get a terrible version of Reddit.

Re: Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

#62

Post by automatwon »

maneesh wrote: post #11
danso wrote: post #5

Since Facebook's IPO, which tech unicorns still feel bullish? Here are the tech IPOs I can think off the top of my head. Maybe it's selection bias (I only remember the ones that don't look healthy), but this is what I thought of, and they all are not doing well compared to their IPO price, or were on a heavy downward trend: - Box http://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BOX?ltr=1 - Pandora http://finance.yahoo.com/quote/P - Tw…

SHOP (Shopify) is doing pretty well and their upcoming plans/platform seem to bode well for them.

I didn't even know Shopify was in the unicorn category. I previously worked on a project that generated coupon codes programmatically for a Spotify shop. I just closed my testing account a couple days ago, and thought to myself 'wow, Shopify is still a thing'. No offense, I'm a programmer so I'm completely ignorant to the value I guess.

Re: Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

#63

Post by robszumski »

angryasian wrote: post #47
Xyik wrote: post #26

i find it hard to believe that it could do worse than Twitter.

sorry for repeating myself, but I think they will have a much harder time and will do worse than twitter. At least with twitter you can identify an interest graph. Snapchat is similar in a sense but monetizing stories is a tough sell, because there is no real contextual information on what your friends are actually creating stories about. I just don't see people following brands on snapchat like they do on twitter. S…

You are forgetting how geo-targeted it is, from the filters to grouping snaps about a single event together. You can sell ads for music festivals, concerts, sports games, informal social gatherings, etc based on where it is and who is there.

Re: Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

#64

Post by 0xffff2 »

rhizome wrote: post #49
lowglow wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook does feel like it is dying though. 1. A lot of my friends are leaving facebook 2. A lot of my dev friends no longer build on facebook's platform 3. Most of the young kids I know have moved to Snapchat. 4. Most of the older kids I know hang out on Instagram. 5. All the friends that worked at facebook have left to go work elsewhere.

2. Is there even anything left to develop against in the FB ecosystem anymore? Besides some external thing with FB logins (OAuth), that is.

And on that note, Facebook PAuth seems near universally supported, whereas Google OAuth support is spotty at best. Facebook OAuth support is a nontrivial factor in keeping my Facebook account alive.

Re: Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

#65

Post by jimmaswell »

lowglow wrote: post #25
Analemma_ wrote: post #21

HN's algorithm has a sense of humor: this pairs nicely with the other front-page story about the 2014 prediction that Facebook would be dead by 2017.

Facebook does feel like it is dying though. 1. A lot of my friends are leaving facebook 2. A lot of my dev friends no longer build on facebook's platform 3. Most of the young kids I know have moved to Snapchat. 4. Most of the older kids I know hang out on Instagram. 5. All the friends that worked at facebook have left to go work elsewhere.

I've been seeing comments like this for years

Re: Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

#66

Post by acchow »

yueq wrote: post #43
Analemma_ wrote: post #21

HN's algorithm has a sense of humor: this pairs nicely with the other front-page story about the 2014 prediction that Facebook would be dead by 2017.

it's already dead to many asian/chinese users. they moved to line and wechat.

I see everyone using FB in southeast Asia.

As for China, I don't think most people can access FB? Don't you need a VPN?

Re: Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

#67

Post by kedean »

argonaut wrote: post #13
GordonS wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more so when you consider the chances of Snapchat still being a thing in 3 years, let alone 25

Three years ago, in college Snapchat was hugely popular. Three years later, today, it is still hugely popular. Of course, if you only heard about it on HN/tech sites, you might think Snapchat is a recently popular phenomenon.

Yeah, it's only been getting more and more popular as people realize it actually fills a real communications niche, and isn't just for sending dirty pictures.

Re: Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

#68

Post by maneesh »

automatwon wrote: post #62
maneesh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SHOP (Shopify) is doing pretty well and their upcoming plans/platform seem to bode well for them.

I didn't even know Shopify was in the unicorn category. I previously worked on a project that generated coupon codes programmatically for a Spotify shop. I just closed my testing account a couple days ago, and thought to myself 'wow, Shopify is still a thing'. No offense, I'm a programmer so I'm completely ignorant to the value I guess.

For any retailer selling a physical product, Shopify makes it super simple to list products and connect them with platform apps for fulfillment, marketing, etc.

My company, Pavlok (http://pavlok.com), is built on Shopify, and it's helped us hook up all our shipping/billing/marketing/payment services. Shopify is also a really awesome company -- we were one of their 2015 winners of their Build a Business Competition where they flew us to Necker Island to spend a week with Richard Branson, Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, Daymond John, etc. Not many companies make a trip like this happen :) https://youtu.be/tmuF1xaW3Z0

Re: Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

#69

Post by tedsanders »

IPOs don't really generate profit for companies. They allow one group of people to trade equity for cash and a second group of people to make the exact opposite trade. On net, society is left with exactly the same amount of equity and cash. If the IPO jumps, it means the sellers lose while the buyers win. If the IPO falls, it means the sellers win while the buyers lose. In either case, it's pretty much distributional and zero-sum. I don't understand why this headline is newsworthy. Profit is not the purpose of IPOs.

(To be clear: IPOs do have purpose. They generate cashflow. And they diversify/broaden the investor pool.)

Re: Estimated losses would make Snapchat the most unprofitable social media IPO

#70

Post by gorkemyurt »

lowglow wrote: post #25
Analemma_ wrote: post #21

HN's algorithm has a sense of humor: this pairs nicely with the other front-page story about the 2014 prediction that Facebook would be dead by 2017.

Facebook does feel like it is dying though. 1. A lot of my friends are leaving facebook 2. A lot of my dev friends no longer build on facebook's platform 3. Most of the young kids I know have moved to Snapchat. 4. Most of the older kids I know hang out on Instagram. 5. All the friends that worked at facebook have left to go work elsewhere.

Recent graduate here. Facebook still rules college campuses.. Facebook events are incredibly useful.
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