In 2016 the online social world is more over saturated than ever before. Facebook passed one billion average monthly users, twitter is said to be in decline but is still the network of choice for the rich and famous to share their ill-thought-out quips in 140 characters or less. And it seems every week there’s a new app or website that teens and tweens use throwing privacy out the window. Snapchat has long been one of these apps just waiting to be bought out or left behind, but lately (2015ish) Snapchat has become one of the most popular social networks not only for regular users, but for businesses, news outlets, and giant corporations alike. From McDonalds to CNN to Comedy Central, it seems everyone’s on Snapchat.
But why, why is it so popular? Well to understand that you’ll first have to understand our culture as a whole. Attention spans are at an all time low, most people would rather watch a 5-minute video than a 22-minute TV Show, along the same lines a ‘snap’ maxes out at 10 seconds, after that *poof* its gone. It’s because of this self destruction Snapchat was until more recently synonymous with dubious photography (do I need to sound it out?), but with the release of a feature called ‘Stories’ and ‘Discover’ Snapchat has become an extremely valuable social network. Stories allows users to share photos or videos to all their friends (not followers) at once, with the same 10 second limit, however when more than one picture or video is added throughout a day the story becomes longer allowing a tour guide style overview of someone’s day. Discover is the more commerce oriented feature, allowing some companies to create pictures and videos (or animations etc.) which the user can swipe through. When they come across one that catches their attention they can swipe up to read the story, watch the video or whatever else the company in question has created.
So what does the future hold for Snapchat? In my opinion it’s more or less here to stay. When Snapchat reportedly turned down an 3 billion dollar offer, Facebook attempted to make a Snapchat competitor named Slingshot but to no avail. And they weren’t the only ones, countless ‘competitors’ (rip-offs) can be found through the Google Play Store or Apple App Store, none of which have come close to toppling the instant photo sharing Goliath that is Snapchat. Sure popularity will slow as is the way with social media platforms, but like Facebook, I see a future for Snapchat where a large number of users stick around for the long run. Vive le Snap.
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