Hacker News Reader

Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

People are asking if Snap is more Twitter or Facebook. From my (light) exposure, it doesn't seem like either. It's more like a lifestyle-aware replacement for Apple Messages + Camera -- two of the most heavily used apps on any phone. (For Android, replace Apple Messages with whatever Google calls their text chat app this week.)

The closest comparison could be WhatsApp, and that was valued at $19 billion. So I'm not sure that Snap's valuation is as outrageous as it seems based on traditional metrics.

Also, I've been really impressed by the design of the Spectacles. The yellow charging case is a brilliant way to make the glasses lighter. Snap is the only major tech company that understands anything about playful design -- Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft are all treading the same safe paths of post-Jobsian blandness.

View on HN

I think when people say is Snap a Twitter or Facebook they are wondering if it will +350% or -60% in the first few years after IPO.

Or user growth.

Maybe it will be neither? I could well see Snap sitting at roughly its IPO price or slightly below two years from now. That's the risk of a high-priced initial offering -- the success will need to be extraordinary to drive the stock still higher.

Snap's data has real value, like Facebook's. For most of their users, they have a large portion of their phone's contacts (whether you opt in or not is irrelevant due to your contacts opting into this + a network effect.) They also have media preferences based on what articles you're watching/reading. They also know who you're most interested in (who's stories you're watching most, and who you send/receive snaps from the most) and what their interests are, so they can potentially infer interests from that too, even if you don't read articles. They have location data turned on for most of their users thanks to geo filters, and if they've been "good" data miners, they're sending your facial mapping home when you do a face filter effect. I'd be surprised if Snap doesn't have the most comprehensive faces database out there with all the angles they get from selfies (though they may not have the most unique faces.)

Oh yeah, and they also have the perceived privacy that Facebook doesn't have. Deleting messages doesn't actually delete them, but it just feels better when they're gone, so people are more candid on Snapchat.

Not to mention they've also done an excellent job monetizing their features thus far, with very little intrusion that I've noticed as a user. You get the occasional ad when you're looking through stories, but most of the money is coming from things like sponsored content and geo filters, which users don't complain about.

There's a lot of misinformation in this reply.

> ...they're sending your facial mapping home when you do a face filter effect...

Lenses are generated on the device. They're not uploaded to Snapchat servers.

> Deleting messages doesn't actually delete them...

From the support site: "Snapchat servers are designed to automatically delete Snaps after they've been viewed by all recipients."

https://support.snapchat.com/en-US/a/when-are-snaps-chats-de...

> Lenses are generated on the device. They're not uploaded to Snapchat servers.

Context is very important when you're quoting people: "... and if they've been "good" data miners..."

And regardless of whether or not a filter is generated on device, facial data is being used, and so I'm weary that it could be sent to a server. If it's not, fine, but that's subject to change.

> From the support site: "Snapchat servers are designed to automatically delete Snaps after they've been viewed by all recipients."

So when authorities get involved, I'm sure Snap says "sorry, can't do anything for you"?

> So when authorities get involved, I'm sure Snap says "sorry, can't do anything for you"?

Why not? Obviously it's nonfree software so neither of us really know, but the alternative is that they're simply lying. Maybe they are, but that sounds like a ticking time bomb that would destroy them when it gets out. And it would absolutely get out, especially if they try to monetize it as an above poster suggested.

I wouldn't consider it a ticking time bomb. They provide a (false) guarantee to the end user that other users won't be able to capture whatever you sent beyond the time given for them to view it. (This is false because anyone can take a picture of their phone's screen.) Users would understand the very reasonable difference between users having general access to this "expired" data vs. the police. Most people should expect that the police have special privileges in this case, and I don't think there'd be any backlash if this became broader knowledge. Their promise to their users is to provide them with the secrecy of a "secret note", not government proof secure encrypted messaging.

The number I've seen around is that Snap keeps messages on it's servers for two weeks for the authorities(presumably that's also their timeout for a user to download the image).

>For most of their users, they have a large portion of their phone's contacts

Just about every app can collect this information.

>Snap's data has real value

My only disagreement is that its all fake usernames. The friend graph is not as accurate as its like Kik, Myspace, Instagram and twitter in that people will add random people from all different sources, and make connections as there are no real threats to "real life" and "online life". with facebook you at least have a more signals into a "real life" graph and with twitter you have an interest graph. With Snap I don't think either of their signals (stories, friends) are as good.

> My only disagreement is that its all fake usernames

Plenty of people have added their real names in addition to their usernames. But even if they don't, contact lists often have real names.

I'm not sure if that's how you use Snapchat, but personally (and I may be in the minority) I only add people I've either met, or who are in some capacity a celebrity. You can also typically see how close a friend someone is by how many connections they have to other friends in a user's network. Snap users (like Facebook users, I think?) also tend to mostly interact with people they're actually friends with. So at the very least I think the data Snap has is at least as high quality as FB's (and I'm not at all disappointed we're comparing more with Facebook than Twitter, as the latter has had a much more positive market story.)

I know both of our experiences are anecdotal, but the way I see people asking for their snap is pretty lax. Snap or Kik is how I see in many ways the first contact that millenials ask for passive connections whether it be online or irl. For more closer connections its a phone number and fb messenger in the US.

>close a friend someone is by how many connections they have to other friends in a user's network

Again every messaging app that asks for contacts has these connections. FB messenger, Line, Wechat etc has more data points than snap when it comes to this.

>I'm not at all disappointed we're comparing more with Facebook

I would actually compare it closer to twitter. If they are going in the direction of media as they've already announced they are building an interest graph.

Twitter has all the same data and they still can't make money at scale. It's hard, only two companies have done it.

For what it's worth, I talked to a Snapchat engineer at a job fair, and he told me that Snapchat is trying to focus on new products and features (like Spectacles) more so than trying to monetize their data.

I've heard that. Snap considers itself akin to a camera company. Will be interesting to see where things go, but I don't like the valuation.

And Snapchat recruiters are talking to me about coming over and helping their data scientists productionize their models and monetize their data. Why not both?

Whatsapp was privately valued at $19B by way of acquisition. Proactively buying growing competitors to defend a moat, even competitors with hundreds of millions of users, does not establish a valuation the same way an IPO does.

I don't have a strong opinion on Snap's IPO (I guess I hope it does well for industry health?) but I strongly push back on using private acquisitions as a barometer of IPO health.

WhatsApp is the most used messager with 90%+ market penetration. It has more than a billion users globally. Snap is nowhere near that user base.

Viber is kind of a big deal also!

Indeed. In some countries, people book doctor appointments using WhatsApp.

SnapChat has always looked like a solution to a "first world problem" to me. Very US and LA/NYC-centric.

Granted, I'm old, but even in rich European countries, I'm not sure it has potential to do well? (Honest question, I really wonder).

Anecdote, but upwards of 80% of people younger than 25 I interact with in Germany use snapchat.

Agreed with you that delightful playfulness is sorely lacking these days, and that all the established players are fairly uninspired.

Sony has had some designers that just get it over the decades, but sadly they're all over the place. Weird Sony is amazing - see http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/29/4783132/the-amazing-produc... .

Nintendo has also some inspired moments, but they stumble a lot.

I think a better comparison is Line Corp traded on NYSE and

Apple's AirPod design (while more sleek than playful) is quite opinionated and beautiful IMO. It also shifts charging responsibility to the case.

The key to understanding snap is that it's more messaging app than social network, but neither border is well defined.

Also, it's a bit data intensive

One way Snap is more like Twitter: the length of your messages are "artificially" limited. (Temporally in the case of Snap.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com