
In One Tweet, Kylie Jenner Wiped Out $1.3B of Snap's Market Value - pdog
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-22/snap-royalty-kylie-jenner-erased-a-billion-dollars-in-one-tweet
======
farrelljohn
This whole recent update to Snapchat has been horrible in almost every way.
Haven't heard a single good thing from the people I know who use it. My
question is how does an update that is almost universally hated by the user
base get through to production? Does Snapchat not have any user feedback in
their design or is it simply "How can we make more money"?

Seems to me Snapchat forgot the most important thing about a products
profitability: the customers.

~~~
jbob2000
The lesson for Snapchat, and really any new software company, is that design
updates need to roll out slowly. You cannot drop a boat load of changes on
users. Facebook learned this early on when they introduced the new wall and
news feed. Now they allow you to preview design changes before they get fully
rolled out.

The design changes aren't necessarily bad, it still looks and operates fine.
Snapchat just made the rookie mistake of changing everything at once before
anyone could orient themselves around the changes.

~~~
Spooky23
It’s typical tech hubris. For a consumer product, changes that are convenient
to product development are almost always shitty for the customer.

~~~
noobermin
The issue here is assuming that the users of said sites are their customers.
They are not.

When you are selling beef, do you worry about how the cows feel about it?

~~~
_r_o_y_
You do if it affects the way the beef sells.

~~~
noobermin
Right. Was going to add that ammendum, but didn't get around to it.

The point is users are _ancillary_ , not the primary means of revenue.
Whenever there is that mismatch, you'll have issues like this.

------
majormajor
An experience redesign (vs a reskin) is saying you have something new good
enough to justify disrupting your user's existing routines.

It's not clear to me what that new thing is in the new Snapchat UI. It seems
better consolidated but less consistently sorted/organized. But for direct
communication with friends, it's not really that different.

If anything, the redesign feels like an attempt to protect the core feature of
Snapchat - the direct communication vs the spammy broadcasting - at the cost
of a temporary hit to revenue. I don't see how it would make them _more_ money
in the short run.

I honestly have _no idea_ how a celebrity would use the app, so it could
easily be much worse for her, but that direct experience probably isn't
relevant. Snapchat isn't Twitter. Twitter and Instagram seem to be dominated
by "influencer" type stuff, which is why I practically never use them -
Snapchat is better for talking to people I know. Trickier to monetize that,
though.

Regardless, thanks to modern metrics ("spying" if you're uncharitable)
Snapchat is doubtless aware of all the changes, so we'll see if further
changes come or if this was just complaining-about-change.

------
bdluna
Have to agree, the recent update is a head-scratcher. They made user stories
considerably more confusing to use, and these same user stories are what made
Snapchat successful and exciting to begin with.

I really think they should work to bring back the daily city/event stories
too. For those that don't remember, they used to aggregate the biggest events
and city stories on a daily basis and provide those front and center. Was a
really unique way to experience a city across the world from where you are!
They've since gotten rid of this, and moved it into a hidden "SnapMap" feature
which is easily missed by many users.

~~~
taoistextremist
>I really think they should work to bring back the daily city/event stories
too.

I remember this showing me how great some places are across the world that I
never thought of, when they were daily (or was it weekly?) a different
city/country. At the risk of sounding ignorant, I remember learning just how
modern and developed Namibia's urban life is from one of these.

------
samfisher83
If she were to short the stock and then posted a tweet is that illegal? Or the
inverse if she bought the stock and posted a tweet? It seems like some of
these social influencers have a lot of power.

~~~
guitarbill
If Wall Street/investors are so out of touch that a vacuous tweet of a
socialite can have so much effect, to me that’s a different issue entirely.
Not to mention one reason this could happen is if the stock price was grossly
overvalued in the first place. In general, I don’t see anything specifically
illegal about this.

~~~
webkike
Kylie Jenner has 24.5 million twitter followers that presumably think somewhat
similarly to her. I'm pretty sure that her thoughts on this matter are
indicative of a larger trend that an investor would be wary to ignore.

~~~
guitarbill
A trend is more than one person, and as the article states her situation has
recently changed. This is all a sign of pure laziness/hype/greed, instead of
doing some actual market research before you make investment decisions. In any
case, I’m not sure how much of her “thought” went into that tweet.

------
ihuman
Could someone explain to be why the new update is bad? I primarily use
snapchat for my friends' stories. With the new update I no longer have to see
ads under the stories, which is a positive for me.

~~~
pducks32
Why I don’t like it is 3 fold: 2 major and 1 minor. The first is that my
friend list is 1\. Person I just Snapped 2\. Person I just Snapped 3\. Person
I haven’t talked to in forever (but just posted to their story) 4\. Person I
haven’t talked to in forever ...

And there will be times I snap a person and go back on the friends list and
their gone! Like they just don’t show up anywhere I have to search them to see
if they opened my snap.

Second is that I have people (like family) who I don’t snap much but still
look at their stories. In the new version I actually have to search them all
Individually which is awful.

Third is minor but I find the friends list cluttered and difficult to process.
Stories, Streaks, message notifications, scores, Bitmoji, names all cluttered
into one single line item.

------
thisisit
> on the heels of a tweet from Kylie Jenner, who said she doesn’t open the app
> anymore. Whether it’s the demands of her newfound motherhood, or the recent
> app redesign, the testament drew similar replies from her 24.5 million
> followers. Wall Street analysts too, have begun to notice, citing recent
> user engagement trends noticed since the platform’s redesign.

So if it crashes even more, can we safely say it was caused by some of the
"similar replies" on this HN thread? ;)

------
WellDressed
Reminds me of the backlash Digg received back in the day.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/pda/2010/aug/31/digg-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/pda/2010/aug/31/digg-
redesign-revolt)

~~~
Analemma_
Yes, this is an important lesson about redesigns. I saw a couple people brush
off the Snapchat redesign angst with, "Meh, people will get over it", usually
with links to the (admittedly accurate) Oatmeal comic about Facebook layout
changes [0]. And while that's certainly the case sometimes, don't count on it
as a general rule: Digg demonstrated conclusively that a poorly-received
redesign can torpedo the entire company. Proceed with caution.

[0]:
[http://theoatmeal.com/pl/state_web_winter/facebook_layout](http://theoatmeal.com/pl/state_web_winter/facebook_layout)

------
reaperducer
Like any other company, it's important to diversify your revenue.

Snap tied itself heavily to flash-in-the-pan pop celebrities. It should also
have cultivated other types of thought leaders from other groups if it wanted
to be anything other than a flash-in-the-pan, itself.

If you don't think clearly, the hockey stick on the graph smacks you in the
head.

------
code_sloth
Can someone remind me how on earth is Snap's market cap US$20 billion right
now?

~~~
Kequc
I don't get it either, apparently a tech companies value is tied directly to
and only to the size of its user base. I could never use the app effectively
so I'm happy to hear it got a redesign of any kind.

------
eksemplar
Trump tweets about taxing European solar and stock in Vestas (wind power)
drops 35% in two days, despite the company ringing in contract after
contract...

Now a different reality tv star crashes $1.3 billion worth of value with a
tweet about not using a platform?

Stock is quite frankly getting dumber than CryptoCurrency.

~~~
OfficerGuac
Cryptocurrency has always been catching up rather than ahead of the game in
the speculation stupidity arena. I always have a good time when I read
/r/wallstreetbets (even though they're pretty self-aware, it can still be
hilarious).

------
TeeWEE
Its not this tweet that wiped out the market value, its the fact that less
people are using snapchat..

------
racer-v
Crazy that we still use apps instead of protocols for feeds and video. What's
the closest thing to an open substitute? I've been looking at Gajim for XMPP +
video chat [https://gajim.org/](https://gajim.org/)

------
fnayr
So I read the article, but I've seen claims like this before: some event
correlated with a stock dive equals "proof" the event caused it, when it turns
out some other news got announced like a quarterly result. Is that what's
going on here?

~~~
bspn
I don't follow Snap well enough to know the cause of the dive, but they did
release their first ever annual report as a public company this morning:

[https://investor.snap.com/financial-information/sec-
filings](https://investor.snap.com/financial-information/sec-filings)

~~~
wungsten
That is certainly a much more likely cause of the devaluing.

------
bfrog
Considering the stock rose nearly 50% after last earnings... It was bound to
fall.

~~~
bob_theslob646
Hindsight bias. It rose because of a gigantic short squeeze coupled with
better than expected earnings.

>Revenue: $285.7 million versus $252.9 million estimated, according to a
Thomson Reuters consensus estimate.

------
z3t4
Replace Snap with something else. For example: "In One Tweet, Kylie Jenner
Wiped Out $1.3B of Microsoft's Market Value" to see how ridiculous it can get,
then think about why is that.

------
tejasmanohar
The causation here is weak to say the least.

~~~
wungsten
Another user pointed out that Snap released their first annual earnings report
since IPO this morning, which seems a far more likely cause :)

------
makecheck
At this point it’s hard to think of a major app or OS that _hasn’t_ done
something to royally screw over its users with unwanted updates that changed
everything for the worse.

There needs to be a mechanism for making certain user guarantees, especially
once money has been exchanged. And arguably since “time is money”, if you have
invested a certain amount of _time_ in something that’s then been messed up by
the provider, you should receive similar guarantees because you’ve essentially
“paid” a lot for it.

One of the problems is that it’s just too easy for companies to radically
revamp things freely. Open-source used to sort of defend against this with the
forking option. Too many modern devices are now locked-down to the point where
open-source isn’t feasible for much of the software you’re likely to need.

Another problem is that too many updates are able to lump the bad with the
good. Perhaps we need a way to force entities to develop their software
features in such a way that at least two independent classes of updates are
feasible: for example, allowing users to skip stupid UI revamps without
becoming completely unable to receive other bug fixes.

------
technofiend
>on the heels of a tweet from Kylie Jenner, who said she doesn’t open the app
anymore

Ouch. Sounds like she should have been a beta tester of the revamped site. In
other words "don't bite the hand that tweets you." I'll let myself out.

------
erikrothoff
I’ve always found the rise of Snapchat a bit volatile. Their main audience is
bound to lose interest and move to the next cool thing. Facebook at least has
a utility, so it’s not only about where the ”cool kids are”.

Like MySpace.

------
mtgx
Maybe a lesson to be learned for companies here: ignore the "small vocal
minority" at your own peril.

------
adamnemecek
This is basically celebrity news.

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tw1010
"Temporarily" could be added to the headline.

------
jcslzr
if this is not proof that the stock market is a house of cards i dont know
what is...

------
jacquesm
Kylie who?

~~~
gaius
There is only one Kylie (Minogue) and she is far too classy for social media
shenanigans

------
oceanghost
Snapchat is purposefully difficult to use, and completely user-hostile
(notifications in particular).

This is how they keep adults off their platform.

~~~
imglorp
Let's go into that a little more. Are you thinking that "exclusively for kids"
is the message, and that you have to appeal to the demo to keep them?

Another major user hostile feature is viewing anything on Instagram: the
images (main reason to be there, eh?) are hard to zoom or save. The videos
have few options like speed or captions. They almost revel in "here's your
fixed size picture frame, enjoy our choices".

~~~
oceanghost
I think SC wants to appeal to young people. Young people don't want their
parents around. So SC needs to find a way to discourage older folks while not
appearing outright hostile.

Solution? Create a somewhat frustrating user experience. For Some reason,
younger people will tolerate that and older folks won't, thus you skew your
demographics the direction you want.

It's not that the app is impossible to figure out, it's just that it has a lot
of unnecessary friction. Another way of saying this is: Adults care more about
good UI/UX than younger folks.

I realize there are a lot of assumptions in my argument here, but it is my
best reasoning out of the situation.

~~~
imglorp
> Adults care more about good UI/UX than younger folks.

I was thinking the opposite, almost. I would propose: kids care more about a
fun instant experience (socializing) vs adults caring more about utility (I
like this picture, can I zoom and save it?)

So it might be the lack of utility that drives the ancients off the site, not
the lack of Pretty UI.

~~~
oceanghost
I think that is absolutely true, but I was talking about a different dimension
than fun or utility-- which is simply frustration.

Things like, the pointless Team Snapchat messages that MUST be watched. The
app sending notifications when someone is typing, and then when they send a
message. This means for each message I receive, I effectively look at my phone
twice.

And last but not least, if there's a gap in some not particularly exciting
conversation I was having--my 40 year old brain can't remember what the heck
we were talking about.

