Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikeryan | Hacker News Reader

There's been a bunch of apps out there that have taken off and completely surprised me. But I can't think of another succes that makes me feel out of touch more than a 20B valuation for what launched as "the app that sends disappearing images". Kudos to the team though. Evan and Co, seem to have made a lot of very smart decisions in growing this business.

View on HN

Not only a product with minimal apparent value, but one that is incredibly difficult to use. It's been suggested that a poor UX and ugly product was actually what helped it take off [1]. That young users knew their parents wouldn't "get it".

1. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/01/...

I actually really like the UX. What's so bad about it? Swipe to see pictures, tap picture you want to see, tap again to make it go away

The main thing is that it's what facebook SHOULD be - a window into the lives of my friends and the people I care about. Facebook now just shows me constant shares of auto-playing videos from various click-bait and viral sites. Every single one of these videos flow up to the top of my newsfeed, but NONE of the people sharing them I would consider a "close friends" or anything like that - their newsfeed algorithm has warped their front page.

I recommend unfollowing (or even unfriending) those people. You will no longer see their drivel in your newsfeed.

Unfollowing the sources of drivel can also be somewhat effective.

(I was pretty stoked when I saw the "Hide all from Buzzfeed" option on Facebook.)

It's been much more than only disappearing images for a while.

Good point, Edited - I meant what it launched as.

Yea. Slap on a pair of dog ears and a filter. And then disappear.

Please, I can see you don't know what you're talking about.

Between stories, geo filters, face filters, discover, chat, video chat, trophies, streaks, etc. it's become a bit more than just disappearing images.

As someone who didn't get it for a long time, and is now a multiple daily user I can tell you what made the difference for me:

1. Understanding that the whole point is to lower the bar of entry for visual communication because it's low risk

2. The "Stories" aspect lets me get intimate with my friends around their day to day, when I can't be around them.

2.a. Watching others who aren't my friends who are giving good or interesting info is incredible to me. Snapchat actually allows for lifecasting in a way that is not obtrusive or complicated as it only requires a few seconds at a time.

Those things are pretty breakthrough for communications IMO.

They're secretly feeding Google TensorFlow with images ... they have to do something rather than just being a temporary pipe.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com