Snapchat's Biggest Weakness | Hacker News Reader

Snapchat's Biggest Weakness

ryanhoover.me

4 pointsrrhoover7 comments

Going on a whim, but I feel that mass perception is in Snapchat's favor here. The public doesn't explicitly trust Facebook with all of their stuff, despite putting just about everything online - but this is entirely different. The nature of the disappearing messages is inherently very private, something people don't associate Facebook with at all. I've got a little selection bias, but none of my friends with Snapchat have heard of Poke, let alone use it. It may not be here to stay forever, but I don't think FB can kill it itself. A third party with better design, maybe.

2 things: - privacy and Facebook arent strong points for a lot of consumers. Especially younger people, which I would think (no evidence) would be the majority of users.

- Facebook probably did this as more of a warning shot to other developers that they will clone their service as a matter of urgency if they make a offer and they dont sell. They may have learned from their Instagram purchase that it costs a lot once someone else has enough traction.

I think you are completely missing the point of snapchat. Right now they do have network effect because there is no other way to anonymously send disposable pictures. Everything op is talking about would completely ruin the value of snapchat. You have to look at it more as a product like Kik, BBM or skype, which has none of those terrible features you suggested and look at it as a alternative communication platform.

You're right, Snapchat has network effects which _does_ create a commitment effect; however, as Nir Eyal points out, network effects aren't enough (http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/04/the-network-effect-isnt-goo...). The rapid growth of Snapchat (without use of Facebook/Twitter integration) exemplify this. Users are willing and able to switch services much more easily today than ever before.

Everything is moving much faster than it once was.. so its very hard to say what does have commitment effect especially when it comes to social thats so much more incredibly fickle .. friendster, myspace, even facebook to an extent you see people using Path and other niche services. Utilities are the only thing that has any lasting commitment.

You keep on wanting to point out Nir Eyal as an example, while the mechanics he speaks are true and relevant, most example he uses is a piss poor example of a true commitment. Really Slashdot/metafilter/fark/Digg/ and Reddit is the true commitment or Quora - the struggling QA platform. Really taskrabbit and airbnb. Lets be serious none of these are good examples.

Like I said previously Snapchat is a communication utility that people commit like BBM or whatsapp or kik or skype or even aol messenger. When it comes to a communication platform, people will commit to a few of them. Snapchat will be fine because its anonymous and provides a very specific community and has first movers advantage.

I don't buy it. Snapchat's advantage is that you have friends who use snapchat. Poke isn't catching on simply because nobody uses it; Snapchat is the fourth most downloaded free app on the App Store, whereas Poke is at 145. Any of the things suggested completely break the very concept of Snapchat as transient. It's like Facebook: the lockin isn't your data, it's the people. Poke is basically Google+.

if you think poke is google+ you aren't using google+ correctly

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