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HOW DO YOU reach a point where you could have something valued at €16 billion? That’s the situation Snapchat has found itself in as it looks to raise up to $500 million, a funding round that would see its value go up to between $16 – $19 billion.
Even if you believe that’s a huge overestimate, Snapchat has become so much more than a picture messaging app. It’s positioned itself as a serious contender to Facebook’s mobile ambitions, and it’s only getting started.
The concept of Snapchat has been well documented by now so we’ll spare you the details, but its evolution has been something else entirely.
The core appeal of the app is its feeling of spontaneity. Since you can’t upload or save photos and they disappear within a few seconds, it means you have to go with the shot you’ve taken and stick with it. The original concept was a breath of fresh air when it first launch in 2011 (and still is), and even with the numerous attempts out there, nobody has really matched it.
Since what you’re viewing, be it a video or image, is going to disappear anyway, it does encourage you to pay more attention to what’s being posted. If something is around on demand, you’re not going to place much value on it as it’s easily accessible, but when it’s a once-off, that’s a different story.
Its future success boils down to three features it has released in recent times, one of which is a long-term bet.
Snapchat Stories
Probably the most important of Snapchat’s features, Stories is the one that is ripe for growth. Essentially a curated version of videos, all the videos that appear are shared among friends, but it’s the ones that are linked to a specific event – Our Story to give its official title – that has the most potential.
Users contribute their own clips relating to events like music festivals or sporting events and according to Snapchat, attracts a massive audience as the videos are short and it’s where the element of spontaneity mentioned earlier really comes into play.
While it’s limited to major events right now, you could see a situation where, over time, smaller events or even competitions will include this feature, bringing out the best clips and photos from it.
That sharing is going to become more prevalent as Snapchat recently integrated music playing in videos. If you have a track playing in a music app, it will record that alongside your video clip.
Think along the lines of Dubsmash and you’ll have the right idea. There was an app called Mindie which allowed you to upload video with music to Snapchat in the US, but it was cut off.
Discover
If there’s one section that would really annoy Facebook, it’s how Snapchat convinced some of the biggest online publications and media entities to publish stories directly through the app. Something Facebook has been trying to do with posts and now video.
This is major for two different reasons. The first is that Snapchat managed to convince these companies to cut out the middleman and publish directly – even if they’re not major stories or separate content, that’s still a big deal.
The other is that it has effectively created a multimedia ecosystem. While it starts off with news and videos now, what’s to say it won’t branch out and include other app-like services in Discover. Having the right type of audience can make a lot of things happen.
Snapcash
This is very much a long-term bet. Not much has happened with it since it launched in the US back in November, there isn’t much impetus on the user’s part to send over cash, but thinking about it from a user-to-user perspective isn’t really the point.
The best app to compare this to would be Line, the instant messaging app that’s huge in Asia and sees it moving into mobile payments and launching its own taxi service.
Snapchat appears to be following the same trajectory and with brands and companies clamouring to be on the platform, there’s a future where you’ll be paying for certain services through it or a similar app.
Since you have the likes of Apple Pay finding its feet, Google starting to expand its Wallet service and Samsung buying LoopPay, that’s going to be an important factor.
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People just get angry and offended by everything now ffs. I am so happy to have grown up in the generation I did. Giving the whole world a platform has just made things too sensitive.
@Nollaig Elliot: I cant believe you just said that. Apologise immediately to me, before I cry
@Nollaig Elliot: You are 100% correct.Everyone is SOOO fu@king sensitive now.These snowflakes wouldn’t have been much good between 1939-1945.The ‘always offended” pussy generation.
@Kieran Conroy: nothing turns you lot into raging snowflakes like an article on women! Boom your head explodes! It’s so funny!
@Kieran Conroy: Right on Kieran.
You must have enjoyed letting the Catholic Church do all your thinking for you, while at the same time meekly turning a blind eye to child abuse, institutionalization of single mothers, overt racism and the criminalization of homosexuals.
They were the good old days alright.
@Nollaig Elliot:
I’m offended by your comment.
@Deborah Behan: Hi Deb! Happy new year.x
@MK76: Actually I hate all religion.Doesn’t take away from the fact that we now have a generation of easily offended weaklings.
@Deborah Behan: it’s not the article that ticks people off its the feminazi lunatic commentary that makes one want to shoot oneself in the face.
@Kieran Conroy: So you think speaking out against and/or calling out racism, bigotry, misogyny, anti-semitism etc is a sign of weakness?
You’ll find that says a lot more about you, than anybody else.
I really doubt people are offended any more than they ever were. It has just become acceptable to say so now. When I was a child in the ’80s, there was always a sense that if you were bullied, you must be weak or “too quiet” or in some way have brought it on yourself, so for that reason, most people who were being bullied, denied it vigorously if anybody asked them about it. To admit somebody was treating you badly was seen as an indictment of you, as if you were somehow responsible for somebody else’s behaviour. And so, people suffered in silence.
Now we have realised for the most part, that this is ridiculous and extremely harmful. We have seen how abusers and bullies continued to abuse and bully others because nobody ever reported them. So it has become more acceptable to say “no, it not OK to bully/abuse/make racist comments to me.”
So it looks as if more people are hurt by being abused or bullied but I don’t think people in the past were any less upset. They were just told to shut up and put up with it.
@Margaret Lane: the same situation pertains now. People in a stronger position bully, use and manipulate weaker people. Just an unpleasant fact of life. Men are no more likely to look for help today as they were yesterday. May be different for women I don’t know.
@Nollaig Elliot: Peoples egos are to blame, their arrogance has made them think they are right especially if others agree with them. This has killed off free speech with free ideas as well as free will, people have lost their individualism for the sake of fitting in and being noticed, they want to be accepted now and belong, they don’t care what is right or wrong as long as they can fit in and get noticed.
Anger is a form of being spoilt, always getting their way from bad parenting as anger comes from a lack of control and at its heart is being spoilt. Always getting your way as a child never prepares anyone to deal with setbacks or hardships, so when it happens they are never mature enough to handle it. So I think they turn this rejection onto themselves or onto others them as in bullying. The mass media has replaced parents and parenting now and the things it teaches should be the domain of parents but parents now expect teachers to parent instead of them. People are losing how and what to do because they spent too much time listening to others telling them what to believe, feel and think. Mainly due to the culture from the U.S. of consumerism with their morals broadcasted into their homes from the media made by people who are like Harvey Weinstein and his like. No one thinks for themselves and that is why they’re so angry because they don’t know what they really want, how to get what they want and how to be happy with what they have?
@MK76: first dig at the CC for 2018 was hoping you would ease back a bit you are a boring clown
It was the year of getting a very immature, image obsessed taoiseach!
@Adrian: We live in the age of fakeness, mass consumerism, Trumps twitter rants, May’s brainless decisions, EU corruption and Bankers greed as well as thick snowflakes. Society dictates what it becomes from behaving as it does, it feeds itself because society is breaking down, the end of empires has begun because everything is so corrupt now that it has lost its backbone which is needed for to survive?
http://flhef.org/pdf/The%20Cycle%20of%20Nations.pdf
You forgot election of Macron in France both major parties lost the election….Anger of electroate…Is making thousands of public servants redundant and promises to cut public spending in France by €60 billion over 5 years…Still seen by mainstream media as a great socialist leader…Merkel in Germany also electroate angry at her immigration policy….No anger in Ireland however….
@John003: you seem to be speaking for electorates of other populations which both rejected the reactionary right wing politics that personifies the kind of undirected anger being talked about. And Macron is not seen as a socialist, no one talks about him as a socialist. You might be confusing economic policy (he’s right of center, especially for France) with social policies (he’s a moderate, not all that liberal really).
Yeah not sure what you’re on about really.
@John003: Macron was nominally a member of the Socialist Party in France from 2006 to 2009 so as to hold unsecured positions but he was never an actual socialist. His background is that of senior civil servant in economics and finance as well as previously an Investment Banker. The mainstream media has never depicted Macron as socialist and therefore your comment is uninformed as well as inaccurate.
Goosfraba !
If I believed everything in the media I would
It was the year of watching the orange train wreck..over and over again.
@Dave Sherman: Capt. America on twitter living in Lalaland?
Can’t we all just get along!
@The Bunk: did you not read the article .. because we are angry
@The Bunk: if ye don’t shut up I’ll fuking kill ye !!
@The Bunk: just think of the children
@The Bunk: No, too many are telling others that their wrong because they think it makes them look right?
2018.The year of destroying the far left s@umbags once and for all.God bless President Trump.Long may he reign.
@Kieran Conroy: He’s a sociopath?
Why won’t drivers indicate at roundabouts? Aaarrrgghh.
@Leadóg: Because they are that arrogant that they expect you to be psychic?
Read “Age of Anger” by Pankaj Mishra. There is a trend to rise in anger and rage but it strarted before 2017 although it was more emphasised in degree in 2017 than before.
Social media has set a trend for dissemination of feelomgs of anger and conventional media is responding to the public attitude of looking for more and more angry content.
Trump acquired the US Presidency on the back of anger. Anger is produced by fear and hate. People can be more easily manipulated by negative emotions than positive emotions, responding uncritically when the more primitive parts of the brain are excited.
The hard right and the ultra right, authoritarianism and fascism thrive in a climate of anger generated by fear and hate. A manipulated politician sees sources of fear where there are nine and becomes blind to what should sources of fear.
@Fiona deFreyne: I couldn’t have described the whole feminist movement better myself. Great comment Fiona. Feminism and its authoritarian nature is a result of this ‘anger’ you talk of.
Great to know, as I can now get back to ignoring them.
@Liam: you lack the power of comprehension by keep trying.
@Fiona deFreyne: don’t feed the troll Fiona.
@Fiona deFreyne: That’s all very Yoda but the labels you use are somewhere confusing. Hard right, ultra right etc etc are actually given by people like you to those who are angry because governments and institutions make decisions and cannot be challenged or changed. As we know if you have been negatively affected by the EU stance of migration and you dare say anything you are labelled and silenced. Today in Germany a law comes into use that enables them silence all opposition to the government’s policies on social media as it will be branded as hare speech. We’ve been seeing it already on facebook where they are using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. Its that totalitarian approach to silence unlicensed opinion that causes anger. I have to say I’ve been shocked at what FB have been doing.
@Fiona deFreyne: I think the right and left now are different sides of the same coin especially when the left in the U.S. can burn peoples property on them, injure and threaten others with murder. All violence is the same on both sides, as Dr. No said East and West are just points on a compass, the same now can be said about the left and right in politics and in society.
Balance is about treating others as you would like them to treat you and that is the key of society but society is changing due to politics and due to social media especially when ones can hide under handles that allows them to be as negative as they like because the feel they don’t have control. Racism, sectarianism, poverty and class all create a feeling of not being in control and this lack of control can create racism, sectarianism, classism and hatred, it creates and feeds itself and draws itself to itself especially when like can attract like on the world wide web, the more people find others who believe, feel and act as they do then the more they think that they are right and then the more extreme things become and all because people are sheep-like in their nature?
Yeah, the Left sure like to whinge! Everyone else just gets on with it. In the US the stock market is flourishing, unemployment is down, the POTUS is getting through his pre-election promises at a fair rate.
Here, the stability brought about by the minority government and its “confidence & supply” arrangement with Fianna Fáil has brought about significant successes such as reduced unemployment rate, early repayment of debts, etc. Sure, homelessness and the cost of housing continues to be a bi
@Brian Lenehan: … big issue, and I’m not sure that any government would be able to resolve it without a referendum to remove or amend the right to property, but in the whole there’s a lot to be happy about.
Though of course Trump has had no time to have any impact on the economy yet, so if the economy of the U.S. is doing well, it is all to the credit of Obama and possibly Bush.
We won’t know what impact Trump has on the economy for a good few years yet.
@Brian Lenehan: People haven’t yet realised what the outcome of what he is doing and it will hit them like a 10 tonne truck when they do…
If we could be angry in a more positive way…All the petty acts of terrorism but not one really good revolution. Only so much marching and pillow punching you can do. If anything, 2017 was “the year of fear” – anxiously looking over your shoulder. And yet another year in the sorry saga of “talking about but doing nothing about” the big three: loneliness, homelessness and mental illness. 2017 was a wasted year.
@Paul Jennings: Anger can never be used in a positive way, it is always destructive, anger never accepts, motivates or handles anything in a positive way. It just adds to more negativity.
What people need is motivation, love, acceptance, growth and a reality check. Nothing ever gets changed because people never own anything, they pass the buck and kick the can down the road and so things keep getting worse as a result. It never helps because people have their own priorities and these are always selfish and self absorbed?
So when is the Journal going to cover the fact that the founder of Esprit and a political backer of Clinton was found out to be paying $500,000 dollars to back women accusing Trump of sexual assault during the election campaign?
Corruption and unethical politics by the Democrats and their supporters seems like a pretty important topic.
Ah 2018 we’re more prepared to better ourselves than than we were 2017 .
The only angry fools in 2017 were the un-democratic far left.Can’t accept President Trump.Can’t accept Brexit.A bunch of small minded village idiots.Toys out of the pram.Assh@les.
@Kieran Conroy: ___ Angry fools aren’t just far left, as you seem to be a far right angry fool.
@Ted Murray: I’m actually left wing when it comes to things like workers rights etc.I’m leaning very much right when dealing with crime & punishment & Islamic terrorism.You see, people don’t have to be far left or far right.Some people find this concept difficult to understand.
@Kieran Conroy: likewise. The problem however is that left wing economic policies come prepackaged with liberal social policy/mass immigration.
@Kieran Conroy: i can see why trump and brexit happened. Wishful thinking on the good old days BS. Where men were men and uppity people knew there place. Trump is in power to make himself and him mates Koch brothers and co etc rich end of and brexit was the idea that little Britain wants their empire back. Take their country back from the EU and then sell off the health service/ transportation bit by bit. Duh!
@Kieran Conroy: ___ It seems to me that you’re simply politically confused.
I am so angry being asked this question.
Ooh,I could crush a grape I’m so angry.
@gerry fallon: Sex helps but not with Trump lol.
There is a definite increase in manufactured anger in recent times. We all know the smug, indignant empty rage at the appropriate juncture…spew
In the words of the Sex Pistols, “anger is an energy”….
@Avina Laaf: That was Public Image Limited, not the Sex Pistols. Now I’m angry!
@Avina Laaf: Or anger’s an overreaction to an artificially induced state of fear.
@Eliza Mac:
I knew I should have said Johnny Rotten instead of the Sex Pistols. I’m angry with myself now for angering you…..
@Fiona Fitzgerald:
So next time I get angry because it’s raining on my day off I’ll remind myself that it’s only an overreaction to an artificially induced state of fear…. Thanks for the tip.
@Avina Laaf: Anger takes away from motivation and creativity, replace anger with humour instead, it has greater lasting powers?
Yes but she has calmed down a bit now. Happy New Year.
lot of drama on TV too especially on the news with the terrorism etc. Apart from that it was grand.
Anger seems to be caused by a lack of control, desperation or from stupidity, those 3 seemed to sum up 2016 and 2017 as well. Why would 2018 be any different?
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