Snapchat acquires social map app Zenly
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Snapchat is one of my absolute "I'm getting old" triggers.
I absolutely cannot use it.
The app may have a notification-bubble on it, but when I start I have to swipe left and right randomly for a given period of time, until I finally, -for whatever reason-, land on a page where I can click the thing which caused the notification.
Why swiping left or right should "logically" lead to whatever it leads, I cannot tell. Often I find myself wanting to go -back- from some deeply nested screen, and to do that I have to swipe from right to left (as in "drag" the app -forwards-). WTF?
And now this. You can zoom out from a screen you never zoomed in to. Because that's clearly obvious.
This whole app is a UX disaster of proportions. I absolutely cannot see the appeal, nor how this app gained such a wide user-base.
Every time I accidentally side-swipe when trying to scroll (about one on five times or so) and land on some obscure functionality I have no reason why I'm being lead into, I'm getting one inch closer to just deleting the app and using whatever dumbed down web-version exists instead.
Can't we please have the big clicky buttons back? Anything except these "magical" swipes and gestures, seemingly only introduced by some weird cargo-cult "gestures are intuitive" following.
At least none of those web-versions has stupid "intuitive" gesture-based navigation and random side-swiping bullshit. And that makes them 100x more usable IMO.
As a UX designer, I think that Snapchat did this on purpose. They know that "the olds" will grow frustrated with the UI and won't use it, but they know that the younger crowd who have grown up with mobile interfaces and their accompanying interaction patterns (tap, swipe to reveal hidden items, long press to reveal hidden items, etc) will know how to navigate around the app and are willing to put up with the UI flaws.
This has two valuable results (at least from Snapchat's point of view):
1) Older people won't use it, which makes the younger generation perceive it as a safe space from their elders.
2) Advertisers are guaranteed a pool of younger users who have disposable income.
As for the appeal of Snapchat, it really lowers the cognitive barrier for updating people about your life. Personally, I spend more time curating items that I post on Facebook as it feels more permanent, but on Snapchat there isn't that pressure as the picture will disappear in 10 seconds or less.
Zenly has definitely an amazing team, but I don't think their tech is that valuable, at least it's not a valid shield against what Facebook could come up with if they feel they should.
Pretty nice for the founders though, and likely nice for the users too - Zenly's product requires all/most of your friends to use it for it to be good, which is really hard to do, but Snapchat already has a lot of users, so it'll take Zenly's tech and turn it into something valuable.
Seems like a nice outcome overall!
1. Why don't they just build it themselves? That would cost probably low single-digit millions and maybe 1 year of time. I don't mean to downplay the work that went into Zenly but it's not like we're talking about self-driving car tech where there's a real technological entry barrier.
2. If, for some strange reason, they can't build it themselves and need to acquire, why do they go for the expensive VC-pumped startup instead of picking one or several of the hundreds of other less expensive options?
Can someone please enlighten me?
Given that Facebook is absorbing their userbase from every angle, literally, by implementing Stories in practically every app under the Facebook umbrella (WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram), that's a year of not having something differentiating to compete with.
Granted, Facebook can hit back pretty easily since they've got mapping down in Instagram and Facebook itself, but hey, it stands out.
One year during which your dev. team cannot work on other projects and without being certain that the end product will arrive on time and be any good.
Edit: Official Snapchat post: https://www.snap.com/en-US/news/post/introducing-the-snap-ma...
They also have awesome tech, AFAIK they're the first to leverage gomobile to create a cross platform (iOS/Android + backend) "transport" code based on grpc.
It's still weird to see the founders exit now since they should still have a lot of runway after last year's round. But it's probably safer given the company doesn't make any money yet.
It most probably is a combination of factors. The crown is supposedly their tech to get constant location with minimal battery impact.
$125 - $175 paid per download.
Jesus.
All of this makes me wonder what kind of financial trick is under that deal. Any proficient VC that could explain what could be going on here ?
EDIT: the stats are 4 millions users not two. But that's still 70$ per download .
- Does the company need it to survive or succeed?
- Can the acquiring company better monetize or grow the asset?
- Are the growth trends exponential, such that a huge amount of other people may soon be using the product?
- Is there some strategic advantage to the team - or product category expertise?
- Is the product easily defensible? (e.g., strong network effects)
I can't speak to this particular acquisition, but there are a number of examples where heavily "overpaying" may actually be a steal in the long term (and of course, the opposite).
Brand bitmojis? Location ads - e.g. like Waze where you see McDonalds logos on the map?
Local events seems like too much logistics/not enough money.
"I'm here shopping for shoes!"
This would not surprise me.
I wonder how often deals like that comes from pressure from VC's rather than actual strategy.
I can't see how 2 million users are worth it either. It really isn't even that many anyways because I'm sure many were already snap users)
Unless it's because they really wanted to do Snap map and are basically paying to have a fast implementation and have that many people with it enabled from day one. This way when Instagram copies them it will take a few months.
Email me [serious].