
Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage - iamben
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-02/snapchat-passes-twitter-in-daily-usage
======
sharkweek
30something here -

It took me a while to "get" Snapchat, but in my opinion there is no better way
to keep up with friends and family digitally than via Snapchat Stories.

You can post pretty shamelessly the little things you're up to all day to your
story, knowing it will be gone in 24 hours, keeping your feed really clean.
Posting more than once or twice a day to Instagram/Facebook seems excessive,
Twitter is a bit more of a firehose than a way to see what everyone is doing.

It took me a bit to get used to the interface, but the goofiness of the entire
service is so enjoyable, including all their filters and whatnot.

I've noticed myself spending way more time on Snapchat than on other services
as of late, even in my "old age for social media."

~~~
themagician
There is nothing to "get". It's all the same. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Snapchat. People want a free way to broadcast to their friends. Someone
invents a service that does that. Slowly ads take over. Now the stream needs
to be "curated". It's no longer a timeline. It's no longer sensible. Now you
can no longer reliably broadcast to your friends. People search for a new
service that did what the old service used to do. They don't even realize
that's what they are doing, but that's what they are doing. I've done this
myself now what, a half dozen times? Every 2 years you have to do it again.

It's the same damn model. It's all the same thing. Sometimes I feel like I'm
taking crazy pills. Does no one see this?

Snapchat will rule until he ads take over. Your stories will slowly be
interrupted by ads. Then your stories will fall out of time sync and you'll
only get some updates or a "Featured Updates" or some other features that's
really just a way to prioritize and guarantee ad delivery. And while this is
happening someone will put out something new, that essentially does what
Snapchat originally did in a slightly different format. Maybe square instead
of portrait or GIF or Live Photo or whatever. But it's all the same thing.
This game will continue forever.

All people want is a way to broadcast into a stream of content, and view other
people's content in a timeline. That's it. It works for a while until you get
too big. Then you can't pay for it and you have to start inject ads and
resorting the timeline until it's no longer a timeline or it's a timeline full
of all this stuff no one ever wanted or asked for.

When I was 15 I'd get home from school and run to my computer to check my
favorite message board. I'd hit "New Posts" and see all the content from my
friends. Cool new video game discussion, new video card benchmarks, some
photos someone uploaded, some rant. Honestly, nothing has really changed in 15
years except the format of the content has been continuously updated to be
technically (and culturally) relevant. But a post is still a post.

~~~
mrweasel
>Someone invents a service that does that. Slowly ads take over.

The problem really is that no one wants to pay for services, or no one is
willing to try charging for their services. Ads are the "safe" option, but it
will also make your users leave in the long run.

I was pretty baffled when a publisher wrote that they would rather make money
from ads on their site, than make money from people buying a subscription.
Service like Twitter, Snapchat and what not seems to be the same way, there's
no desire to try anything but ads.

It is still my belief that at some point some large seller of physical goods
will announce that they're pull their online ads due to lack of profitability.
After that the entire online media business will be forced to charge their
users, and we'll all be better off. Maybe it's just wishful thinking.

~~~
weavie
So what is the alternative? We don't want to pay, we don't want ads.. how else
can these things make money?

~~~
soundwave106
I pretty much use Facebook to follow local companies I'm interested in (as it
is currently useless for personal interests at this time). I doubt I'm alone
in using Facebook in this manner. I've sometimes wondered if ultimately
Facebook could monetize off of that.

(Even on this angle, the problem right now is that Facebook's ad algorithm is
a bit, er, dumb. At least, it hasn't figured out that I'm far more interested
in local business X, Y, and Z that I'm following and not whatever unrelated
spam some megagiantcorp is pushing...)

~~~
ojosilva
Following companies is a "pull" method that would not generate significant
revenue. Facebook corporate customers want to be able to push, and that's why
we have ads.

I firmly believe product placement, and the information exchange that
surrounds it, is _the_ monetization scheme. Unfortunately, not only Facebook's
ad algorithm is broken, but pretty much everyone else's. They have come a long
way nonetheless, ad targeting today is one order of magnitude better that it
was only a few years back.

People want advice not advertisements. When someone has money to spend and a
need to fulfill, to have the right "advisor" is an incredibly valuable asset.
Imagine a bot that knows my tastes, my assets and basically my life. This
advanced bot could psyche me, at the right time, into making valuable and
exciting purchases. A bot I could trust would succeed turning my money into
happiness. That's the direction current algorithms have taken, with ever-
increasing (and rather suspicious) omnipresence in our lives, grabbing any
input they can get their hands on. The key difference is that companies look
after their interests instead of mine.

------
fauigerzigerk
It's amazing how misguided this article is.

Twitter is a publishing platform. You go there for (links to) news, blog
posts, commentary on particular subjects (some of them very niche),
notifications of events or live reporting of something happening in public.

Why does every form of communication have to fit the mold of "keeping in touch
with friends and family" and match the user numbers that these services
inherently deliver?

I'm so fed up with the dominance of "keeping up with friends and family". I
have better things to do than to "keep up" with pointless brain farts and
daily routines of people I know.

And why is everything measured by what kids or teenagers do? So much so that
people on here pride themselves of "getting" snapchat in spite of their
advanced age (>30) as if that was difficult or any sort of achievement.

The salient feature of teenagers is that most of them haven't yet found
anything that they are deeply interested in. Most of them don't have very
complicated social relationships yet as they don't have a past with anyone.
They are not held accountable for anything, and they don't have to make well
informed or consequential decisions yet.

In other words, their demand for information and communication is hard to
predict but can often be met by something totally inadequate for others. So
it's not about "getting it", it's about finding it unfit for purpose.

There's a pattern in the demise of Google Reader and Twitter's current
problems. It seems to be difficult for internet behemoths to justify
investment into the significant but limited niche of people with advanced
information needs.

I wish Twitter had the courage to try to increase usage, utility and depth
instead of growing user numbers. And no, it's not an inherent problem with
capitalism. There are many successful, publicly traded companies that do
something useful, make a profit, and don't grow much.

------
rrggrr
My 77 year old father forced himself to learn Twitter. Why? Financial news. My
journalist friends live on Twitter. Why? Breaking political news. People I
follow in national security circles... on twitter. After a certain number (age
or users) its not about quantity but quality.

~~~
rhizome
I've found Twitter has become my primary news source over the past couplefew
years.

~~~
trts
Right after Google shut down Reader for me. Twitter remains the best source of
news + programming + local + academic content for me. Although on the whole
I'm a little burned out on 'content' in general.

~~~
rhizome
All I can say is, follow reporters who handle topics you're interested in and
it's like having your own personal news site. A messier, but more direct
advance beyond RSS (which I also still use religously).

------
lowmess
Twitter = realtime news/sports, one-to-many jokes/announcements or whatever

Snapchat = catch up on friends & families days, one-to-one connection

It's OK that they each have their purpose, and I wish both services's stated
goals would embrace that. And maybe I use those services different than other
people, but I just think it's strange that two _wildly_ different services are
competing for the same eyeballs in the same verticals. Obviously the
shareholders disagree with me.

~~~
chambo622
At some level _every_ service is competing with every other for users' time.
But at some point, such comparisons become meaningless.

------
niftich
Snapchat has undoubtedly grown; it's really impressive. But much of Twitter's
content you can consume without being logged-in. Is that accounted for at all?

~~~
pavedwalden
Hmm. That's an interesting thought about how to skew 'engagement' stats. Maybe
that's why I can't view Pinterest pages without that irritating "you must log
in" sheet scrolling over the content.

~~~
xeromal
You can actually delete that and keep scrolling

------
edpichler
I really respect the Snapchat service, but the thing is that I don't like to
create things that will disappear. If I want a thing to disappear I simply
don't create it. I believe I am an exception, I see a lot of people that loves
Snapchat because it erases things after a while. May I still don't have the
problem Snapchat was created to solve.

~~~
xux
> If I want a thing to disappear I simply don't create it.

The point is that it mimics a natural conversation. Do you refuse to speak
just because no one is recording you?

~~~
thex10
As someone who can relate to the parent post, I will admit that if no one is
actively listening to me then I absolutely will not speak. But I'm on the
quieter side of personalities and don't enjoy talking for the hell of it.

~~~
robinson7d
But there is someone _listening_ on snapchat - the person on the other side
still sees and hears it.

The conversation analogy that xux made seems perfectly reasonable to me in
that regard. However, it is (depending on the user, I suppose) not super
"real-time" the way conversations are.

------
thetmkay
I've come to recently replace Twitter with Snapchat, having replaced Facebook
Timeline with Twitter.

The process is definitely cyclical, but there is at least one new emphasis
that's changed:

Content is treated as low-value, which makes it low-pressure. Mainly because:

1\. it has a short life span (it expires in 24 hours)

2\. the lack of per-item ratings (e.g. likes or favourites)

3\. it is always packaged non-individually (i.e. as a bundled "Story")

4\. pictures are not dressed up (ie not "Instagram photos") and videos are
short

5\. simple UI promotes content creation as central and valued over content
judging/consumption

Add to that it offers the best visual blogging UI (and specifically vlogging).

Whereas with Facebook and Twitter every new post would bring thoughts like "is
this good enough? Will I regret this post down the line? Will people like
it?", Snapchat promotes the "just do it" attitude. Is this interesting _right
now_?

I expect my personal use of Snapchat will wane as it did with the other
platforms. When something becomes too big it becomes too public, and brings
too much pressure to be idyllic. Right now Snapchat feels closed and personal.

------
erikb
People here only think about how they use Twitter and Snapchat. My first
thought would be: Snapchat has more girls with less clothes. It is not the
content we are looking for, but that's what draws a lot of young guys and
girls there. Twitter offers content. That is nice, but not so interesting to
the amount of people that would be willing to use new apps.

That you can show your daily life to your friends and family is also nice,
certainly may be the tip to lead to higher traffic than twitter, but it's
probably not the majority usecase.

------
kriro
I think Snapchat is too "dangerous" for me. Too much gamification, fueling
FOMO etc.

This story was fairly scary (imo): [https://www.buzzfeed.com/benrosen/how-to-
snapchat-like-the-t...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/benrosen/how-to-snapchat-
like-the-teens)

------
advertising
I downloaded snapchat a few years ago. Didn't know enough people on it and
uninstalled after a month or two.

About a year ago I reinstalled as a way to share a trip I was on. It was
perfect for that.

You'll post one perfect, curated photo to insta of your day, but you'll snap
the random guy in the street, a funny sign in another language or just some
bullshit you're up to.

Instagram feels a bit past its prime these days. I follow more commercial
accounts on insta than I do on snapchat.

Snapchat it's like 40 close friends and fam. People who have my phone number.

Plus if you want to meet girls (sub 30 I should add) snap is the easiest way
to connect lately.

~~~
advertising
The worst thing about snapchat when traveling however, is battery life.

That app literally sucks the juice out of your phone in 10 minutes.

Too much gps trying to load all their filters or something I don't know. I
have to turn off cellular data when roaming or my phone will dead 20 minutes
after I left the house.

~~~
Pengwin
I always have GPS disabled, unless its more to do with where i live, GPS
features of snapchat aren't worth using.

The infuriating thing i notice though is that since the android update was
released where you no longer hold to view a picture or video, your phone will
never go to sleep if snapchat is in the foreground.

------
pdq
This metric is not quite accurate, but Google Trends [1] gives a decent
overview of how Twitter has been on the decline for the past 3 years.

Instagram has surpassed them in search traffic. Snapchat is more than a year
away, but given how young they are is quite impressive.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=snapchat#q=snapchat%...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=snapchat#q=snapchat%2C%20twitter%2C%20instagram%2C%20reddit&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B5)

~~~
jtmarmon
How exactly do you know it's not accurate? If you're saying that because of
Google trends, keep in mind that Twitter is a website, Snapchat is not. Lots
of people still google "Twitter" to get to the homepage. Pretty much no one
would be googling snapchat...

~~~
rockdiesel
EDIT: March and April saw over 9,000,000 searches.

On average, 5,000,000 people google 'snapchat' every single month.

Source: Google Keyword Planner

------
ElijahLynn
Another 30something here:

Just spent the past month forcing myself to understand Snapchat and I finally
get it now. Took a bit, especially since the whole experience is heavily
gamified. I swear the developers are huge video game junkies!

The big takeaway is that Snapchat is just much more personal and real than the
text based social networks.

For those interested in trying it out I recommend.

Mark Suster =>
[https://www.snapchat.com/add/msuster](https://www.snapchat.com/add/msuster)
(Venture Capitalist, tech/leadership 'Snapstorms')

Justin Kan =>
[https://www.snapchat.com/add/justinkan](https://www.snapchat.com/add/justinkan)
(creator Justin TV, now Twitch, very open in business/tech)

Here is my snapchat as well
[https://www.snapchat.com/add/mrelijahlynn](https://www.snapchat.com/add/mrelijahlynn)

edit: This article got me to try Snapchat, I was a big fan of Justin TV and
streamed a ton of content, including live broadcasts from the Ron Paul Blimp.
[http://justinkan.com/why-i-love-snapchat](http://justinkan.com/why-i-love-
snapchat)

Also, this article can get you up to speed on the very different UX =>
[https://bothsidesofthetable.com/snapchat-101-for-vcs-and-
old...](https://bothsidesofthetable.com/snapchat-101-for-vcs-and-old-
folks-47fbfcb29f78)

------
dylanz
I'm not a Snapchat user, but my girlfriend is. I watch her use Timehop and she
laughs at old tweets she made... when she actually used Twitter. She then goes
to Snapchat and watches other people's stories for the next hour while I catch
up on news (HN, industry news, etc). I understand why Snapchat is popular, but
I don't understand people who use it (sorry bae).

------
orliesaurus
2 minutes of snapchat = 3% battery life on Android (Nexus 5) - I like the app
and the idea but it kills my poor baby!

~~~
asadlionpk
I suppose that is because it keeps the camera running even if you are at the
stories or PM panel.

------
marknutter
The moment Snapchat clicked for me was when I was using the current events
features and it was stitching together different short video clips from the
campaign trail. These were raw, candid, and extremely fresh videos showing the
candidates with their guard down. I felt like I was spying. It clicked again
for me last week when a friend was casually flipping through her contacts
"stories". The little glimpses of peoples lives was so intimate and
meaningless at the same time. They're really onto something here.

------
tedmiston
Does anyone else wish there were an option to not auto play the next story (of
User B) when you're watching the story of User A?

------
free2rhyme214
It doesn't surprise me that more people prefer personal conversations than the
news. What surprises me is that Snapchat was able to figure this out in their
own wacky way.

Kudos to them, but this certainly doesn't diminish the importance of Twitter.
People that complain about Twitter so far haven't created a better solution.

~~~
pedalpete
By 'wacky way', I assume you mean disappearing convo's centered around photos.

If so, I find it absolutely fascinating that Evan Spiegel was able to think of
photos as a conversational medium in this manner, and more than just sexting.

------
bennettfeely
Honestly thought this happened a while ago.

~~~
xufi
I was actaully thinking WhatsApp would outspace Snapchat since Facebook has
been investing in them. Interesting to see that Snapchat gained that much more
users

------
dcw303
Social media networks are like night clubs.

Myspace was edgy and underground, then it got invaded by the masses and it was
no longer trendy, so everyone went to Facebook.

Facebook was good for a while but now your parents and family are in every
conversation. How much fun can you have in a nightclub with your parents
watching everything you do?

Twitter is more like a massive dance hall filled with people shouting at each
other. If you stand close to your selected friends it can be fun, and if you
get access to the mic on the main stage it can be awesome, but the usual
experience is that it's filled with randos.

Snapchat is like.. I don't know. I lost interest in nightclubs before I could
get into Snapchat.

~~~
bane
Meanwhile, we all still have email, phones, snail mail and texting.

~~~
zanny
XMPP died though, and Matrix hasn't yet replaced it as it should, which is a
problem.

~~~
majewsky
XMPP died? There must be a bug in my Pidgin then, it claims to still be
connected to my XMPP server. /s

------
enahs-sf
I'm excited to see when snapchat figures out a way to replicate the 'DJ
Khaled' effect. I want to discover interesting people doing cool stuff and
right now i'm not sure how i'd go about doing this on snapchat whereas Twitter
won't stop recommending people to me.

~~~
galistoca
I think it's by design. They're already doing well without the discovery and
the lack of discovery is probably one of the key reasons why people like it.
Snapchat is more about keeping in touch with people they really care about
than some DJ Khaled. In fact a lot of people who first started following DJ
Khaled just to see what the hype is all about don't really care anymore, and
probably increasingly so as more people start using Snapchat.

------
janvdberg
It also took me a while to 'get' it. I sort of think I do now and wrote down
what makes Snapchat different:
[http://piks.nl/wordpress/snapchat/](http://piks.nl/wordpress/snapchat/)

------
Grue3
The thing about Snapchat is that it has no web footprint. It's impossible to
judge how big it actually is. They can report whatever numbers they want.
Remember how Google+ claimed to have more active users than Twitter? Yeah.

------
karmakaze
Snapchat on Android killed my Nexus 5. Phone got exceedingly hot, even when
not in use. By next day display also stopped working. Do I dare try again on
Nexus 6P?

------
perseusprime11
Can someone tell me how do I get out of stories in Snapchat?

------
toxican
I feel like I've been using it wrong after reading these comments. It's always
been one huge attempt to make my friends laugh. We'll take embarrassing/stupid
photos with the goofy filters and face swaps for a cheap laugh, knowing it'll
be gone in 15 seconds or whatever. I'm not really using it to keep up on their
lives or anything like that. and I'm not sure they are either.

~~~
wodenokoto
Nothing wrong with that.

------
mazork
If only they wouldn't be such *sses about Windows Phone maybe I would be able
to keep up with my friends this way ...

~~~
awqrre
No desktop/web app either?

------
iamleppert
Social Media are like TV Shows, and Facebook is like the HBO of Social Media.

One day something else will come up and capture "young people's" attention and
Snapchat will have a slow, painful MySpace-esque death.

This is the price you pay when you don't have anything real to offer to the
world, and instead trade on shear popularity alone.

~~~
dmamills
I believe this is true to a degree. But I believe what differentiates this
comparison of the shift from Myspace to Facebook, is that Snapchat embraces
the concept of ephemeral sharing. Ephemeral sharing I believe will be a huge
part of the future of social media as the younger generation becomes more
aware of the effects of the permanence of the internet.

------
Jyaif
late 20something here. Is it possible for me to "get" snapchat if none of my
friends are using it? If so, how?

~~~
licnep
You need to have friends on it to really "get" it, but you can add
celebrities, people in your address book, or get snapchat usernames from
profiles on tinder/instagram/...

------
_RPM
All due respect to SnapChat, I'm glad people use it and enjoy. As for me, I
had it before, it wasn't really my thing. I never had instagram either, so
maybe there is some relation there.

edit: spelling

~~~
saganus
I guess I'm on a similar camp.

For some reason the idea that I would be posting my day to day seems to me
very "un-private" for a person like me that doesn't want to voluntarily
broadcast my every waking second.

I use Facebook and I post from time to time, but mostly re-shares of other
interesting stuff and very very seldom something about myself. I even try to
stay untagged as much as I can because I find very creepy the amount of info
one can get for the purposes of fraud calls, kidnapping (I live in a country
where this is a very real threat) or other malicious acts.

In the end I'm aware that there's a limit on what I can do without going "more
dark" (i.e. only Tor browsing via VPN from internet connections not in my
house, using Qubes on a laptop bought over the counter, with cash, etc etc),
but I hope that by using things like PasswordSafe with a YubiKey 2FA for my
passwords (32+ random chars) and having the usual, uBlock HTTPSEverytwhere,
DoNotTrack, PrivacyBadger, etc I can at least lower the attack surface.

Like they say "I don't have to run faster than the lion, I only need to run
faster than you".

I just hope that all this really does make a difference, even if tiny, at
least against your regular online-savvy asshole/criminal (I know that I'm
really a sitting duck against a state actor)... otherwise it's just one big
mental masturbation scheme.. :(

------
kbd
Anyone else get an ad blocker message when you're not using one?

~~~
awqrre
I got an ad blocker, but no ad blocking message on that page...

------
wavelattice
No surprises here. Snapchat captures the use a common person wants. Twitter's
really just good for tracking celebrities.

~~~
agumonkey
I track approximately zero celebs. I do track a lot of people in CS/Math
fields. Kindof a live bookmark feed.

~~~
niftich
The point still stands, there are two kinds of Twitter users: 'VIPs' who
attract followers, and 'consumers' who follow them.

------
mickrussom
I think headline means SnapChat crashes more than the twitter app or anything
else.

------
koalaman
pretty cool for an app engine app. I wonder how big their ops team is.

------
kobayashi
Well, you're right that the ad problem drives people away, but you're wrong in
saying that they deliver the same information in a functionally different but
essentially similar method.

I broadcast and ingest very different information on Snapchat than I ever did
on facebook. The ephemeral nature of Snapchat, combined with the lack of
public "likes" makes it a much more positive experience to post, and thus I in
turn see more interesting posts from friends.

edit: you all are starting to use the downvote button like a bunch of
redditors

~~~
themagician
Because you got into Facebook so late.

People who are 20 are doing on Snapchat today what I did on Facebook when I
was 20: multicasting. I either want to send a message to everyone or to a
group. Sometimes in a personal message. I see almost no real difference in
content. Snapchat might be a little racier in personal messages, but that
happened on FB and Twitter as well.

The ephemeral nature was built into Facebook and Twitter as well, to some
extent, as the services weren't searchable. You'd post something and after a
few more posts it was essentially "gone from view".

Outside of marketers and people trying to "build an audience" I really see
almost no difference at all in the way people use it. It's just a matter of
how old you are and what service was popular at the time.

Don't believe me? Do this as an experiment: Create a new account on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Follow only 30 real people. No more, no less.
30 people you know. No marketers or self promoters or any of that nonsense.
Just follow 30 real people, maybe a celeb or two the way a 20 year old might.
Look at the content. It's all the same stuff. Having fun here, doing this with
person X, Y, and Z. Cute dog photo. Inspiring quote. Maybe a DM with some
nudes. There is nothing to "get" other than to understand that as you become
older the thing that's changing is you. The biggest difference between
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat is how old you and your friends were
when you started using it, and what what point in the lifecycle of the service
you were at.

~~~
J-dawg
Great post.

> There is nothing to "get" other than to understand that as you become older
> _the thing that 's changing is you_

For proof of this, look no further than when Facebook introduced the timeline,
making it easier to view old wall posts.

People went crazy, claiming their private messages had been made public [0].
In truth, they just couldn't remember how unconcerned with privacy they used
to be.

[0]
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19699205](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19699205)

~~~
enraged_camel
It's not about privacy directly, but about the expectation for their old posts
to be "forgotten." This is why the so-called "right to be forgotten" is/was a
big deal in Europe.

~~~
J-dawg
It was more than that. People were looking at old wall posts (which were
always public) and they couldn't believe that they'd ever had those
conversations in public. Hence jumping to the conclusion that their private
messages had somehow been converted into public posts.

I think it's fascinating on two counts. Firstly that the accepted etiquette of
how we use social media changed so quickly. And secondly that people's brains
can simply reject something they did in the past, if it doesn't fit their
current sense of self.

------
alive2007
In other news, bananas have surpassed OS X in daily Caloric consumption. I
_knew_ Apple couldn't make it without Jobs.

People conflate the purposes of various products under the umbrella term
"social network", which makes the assumption that all social networks offer
arbitrarily similar function. Simply not true.

Snapchat offers ephemeral pictoral content with humorous ad-hoc additive
filters. This tailors the product for those that desire ephemeral pictoral
content with humorous ad-hoc additive filters. Apparently, a bunch of young
kids.

Twitter offers what is now known through the shorthand, "microblogging". This
tailors the product for people who like "microblogging". Apparently, a bunch
of people, the median age being higher than Snapchat's median age.

Just because more people are spending time on Snapchat than on Twitter, does
not mean that Snapchat is "taking away" from Twitter time. Perhaps different
people are signing up for Snapchat that are not signed up for Twitter. Perhaps
people that are spending X hours on Twitter are now spending Y hours on
Snapchat without taking away from the X hours spent on Twitter. Elapsed
eyeball time, and, ergo, ad revenue, are still the same. This isn't a zero-sum
game. Twitter shouldn't break a sweat because Snapchat is getting more
popular. Facebook shouldn't break a sweat because Twitter's no-character limit
policy may increase user base.

Perhaps the zero-sum approach to competition makes sense in certain fields,
like when products are similar substitutes of each other; like two different
kinds of general-purpose glue offered on the market. Or when market
capitalization of a certain kind of product is fixed : it's been widely
assumed that the average American's entertainment budget is relatively fixed,
so in a philosophical sense, if one popular band didn't exist, another popular
band would be more popular.

But when it comes to products like "social networks"? With vast design
philosophies and product focus and varying demographics? It's very
reductionist to publish a headlines like this and assume it makes any sort of
meaningful conclusions. As with any sufficiently popular business, this stuff
is capital-C complicated and you can't explain relative differences in success
using singular metrics like this.

~~~
WWLink
I think I almost had a seizure reading your post. So many buzzwords lol

------
altonzheng
I had this realization a while ago, Snapchat is basically what Twitter tried
to achieve, a realtime pulse on everything happening anywhere, democratic and
spontaneous because of information constraints. The difference being that
Twitter is plagued with bad actors (you can be mean when you're just typing),
whereas Snapchat is much more engaging, friendly, and to put it in a term that
everyone understands: fun! The sad thing is I think Twitter engineering is
much more talented than Snapchat... _cough_

~~~
alttab
Uh. Twitter is instantly public and indexed by google. Snapchat content goes
away.

They have very, very different goals.

That said, it's easily agreeable that Snapchat the app is a flaming pile of
brogramming.

~~~
altonzheng
Personally, I think in the long run, when you think of it, they are really
similar. I get that they are physically entirely different products, but I
feel like they are both competing for the same limited resource: attention.

I'm speaking solely from what I value personally, but to me, I lump Twitter
and Snapchat in the same category that can be described as: what I do when I'm
bored and want to see what's happening around me. When the problem statement
is that, Snapchat just blows Twitter out of the water in terms of
entertainment. When I watch the Warriors play off on Snapchat, I get to see
the entire game filmed through crowdsourcing - it's like I'm _there_. I'd
argue Twitter is trying to capture that same feeling of being _there_. Also, I
haven't included Facebook in this since they are beyond that, they are
basically a utility at this point.

I thought Snapchat was dumb at first, trust me. However, it's increasingly
proving itself to be a very, very important medium of video distribution. Of
course, there will always be a market for more curated content, but for real
time, spontaneous content, Snapchat beats Twitter for me anyday.

~~~
alaskamiller
Snapchat is your generation's MTV. It'll be okay. Then one day you'll get old
and see the kids do something else. Rinse repeat.

~~~
altonzheng
Couldn't you make this argument for literally any product at any period of
time?

