Comment by aresant | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aresant | Hacker News Reader

Facebook at the time of IPO in 2012:

-= 526 million daily actives (1)

-= $1b net cash flow / yr

-= Last money in pre-ipo values it at $50b pre-money (2011) (4) when daily actives were 372 million

-= $90b market cap after 1st day

Snapchat today::

-= 100 million daily active users (2)

-= ?? net cash flow

-= Last money in values it at $15 billion pre (3)

- - - - -

I understand that's not a perfect proxy to measure value / traction as SnapChat is quick to point out - eg their users watch a lot more video than FB users =- etc

So the revenue-per-user metrics may sway.

But, at the same token, FB at IPO time didn't have as favorable of a growth market (they handn't figured out mobile yet, where today mobile = all of the things)

Will be interesting to see.

(1) http://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-ipo-final-numbers/

(2) http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-daily-active-users-2...

(3) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-11/alibaba-sa...

(4) https://www.crunchbase.com/funding-round/37bd05f961af726ba3c...

(5) https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/faceboo...

Great comment! The data shows a quickly growing social network and ad business (despite a lot of the naysaying in these comments).

From my personal observations, younger folks are spending a lot more time on Instagram and Snapchat, and a lot less time on FB and Twitter. And on Instagram, a lot of Snapchat content gets re-posted with their username in the comments.

Also, the amount of content I see created by people on Snapchat is way larger than what you see anywhere else. The expectation of curation is much lower so engagement is higher.

A few things about the product that I really like that illustrate Snapchat's transformation into a revenue generating business:

- The new "Live" stories from different places around the world are amazing and one of the most intimate forms of cultural exchange outside of physically visiting a place that I've experienced. Advertising has started in these streams already.

- The attempt with Discover to replace conventional TV programming with a mobile-first format is bold and has the potential to grow as younger folks find themselves consuming more media on their phones and as Snapchat builds out better relationships with content creators in the LA area.

- Snapcash is a smart first attempt at getting people's payment information so that peer-to-peer but eventually brand driven commerce can happen on the platform.

My devil's advocate to the points you called out is that just because advertising exists doesn't mean it works. I haven't seen any numbers from their usage yet, but I do know their young demo is aggressively averse to advertising. That being said, aside from the revenue topic, I think integrating news into short-form bites like this is a solid approach to serving today's younger peeps mass media info.

Indeed, Snapchat seems to be doing well. Facebook, not so much:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=facebook

Snapchat and Instagram was born on mobile whereas Facebook have been scrambling to adjust their offering to a different form factor than it was created for. With all of the technical debt Facebook seems to be saddled with no wonder they're not doing so good.

You put an awful lot of faith in a graph with no numbers...

Move our cursor over the graph. The numbers pop up when hovers over the line.

That being said, this graph is a weak indicator. Facebook is doing well in the ad space.

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