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Comment by cylinder | Hacker News Reader

I don't think they are running any ads yet but they could easily make money. A couple ideas:

-Ads that quickly flash for 2 seconds before the 8 second photo snap. "Transformers 5 in theaters tomorrow." Kids have very short attention spans as it is -- this is all you need these days. No more 30 second spots. You have to see it to see your friend's snap, no skipping or blocking.

-Celebrity endorsement snaps. You see a new snap appear from "selena91" or whatever. Open it and it's a quick video selfie of Selena Gomez telling you to check out her new movie/album.

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OK, so it's not clear what the best way to make profits while retaining users is.

EDIT: To clarify, I mean that if the service is dirt cheap, it'll also be dirt cheap for competitors to pick up where Snapchat left off.

craigslist is a perfect counterexample. I'm not sure if this will be true for snapchat, but network effects probably dominate.

The first thing is ... the most annoying thing i've heard from a while. I don't even use snapchat..

You have to wait anyways, this is just putting a picture as part of the countdown, at least that's my understanding (not a SC user either).

The countdown refers to the amount of time you can view the snap (video/photo) before it is inaccessible. Snaps are immediately viewable (given a fast connection).

Well, then that advertising idea seems like a bad one. Thanks for the update!

2 second ads on Snapchat would be a lot less annoying than the 30 second ads you get before short news videos on most news sites nowadays..

How it's different that 90% of the "skip after X secs" ads on video sites, news portals and the like?

The advertiser KNOWS the whole ad will be displayed, vs creating a 30s ad that most users don't see most of because they skip after Xs.

The ad is over almost before the user realizes it's started.

No more conditioning viewers to instantly enter the "how and when can I skip this" mindset. (Tangent: none of the full-window "here's an ad while the page loads" ads work on me; I'm conditioned to instantly hit "skip" and make a point of not noticing the ad itself).

Knowing the ad will be very short, viewers are more likely to not attempt to skip it because it will be done (or very nearly so) before they can do so.

If a user is going to see a given ad frequently, best to get it over with and not turn it into a harrowing experience of repetitive tedium.

There's probably a worthy study of ad effectiveness between the initial awareness of the ad and the cognitive turn against it. Get it over with before the desire to skip begins, or a "I hate this ad" arises.

Just make sure the viewers don't explode from the density & pace of content.

They should show the ad after the 8 seconds, still a mostly captive audience. less annoying

Sure, there are lots of ways for them to make money. But they aren't (yet).

Blipverts? Just 20 minutes into the future...

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