A Timeline of How Snapchat Has Taken The World By Storm
Evan Spiegel’s Idea
April 2011
Evan Spiegel stands up in his product design class to present an idea for his final project. At first glance, the idea of Snapchat seems silly. Pictures that disappear? However, at a closer look, it’s a lot more than that.
What you need to understand, is his insight. People are afraid to share because they do not want to be judged by their content. People fear that it will live on forever. ”It’s taken all of the fun out of communicating.” Spiegel says
Snapchat is a platform that encourages you to be who you are and share it. Snapchat is fun.
Facebook Is Scrambling & Launches Poke
December 2012
Mark Zuckerberg met Spiegel in early 2012 and in Spiegel’s words Zuckerberg told him, “We’re going to crush you.“ Later that year, Facebook launched its answer to Snapchat, Poke.
Shortly after launching, Poke quickly fell from the top 25 apps on both the Apple and Google app stores and Zuckerberg then made a $3 billion bid for Snapchat. After reading The Art of War, this was a no-brainer for the Snapchat team to turn down. Ever since then, Facebook has been scrambling to keep up.
Snapkidz For Users Under 13
July 2013
When signing up for Snapchat, if your age falls under 13, you are directed to Snapkidz instead of Snapchat. Snapkidz allows children to create their own snaps and their parents don’t need to worry about them sharing online.
While not revolutionary, it gives us deeper insight into what Snapchat has accomplished. The app has essentially, gamified story telling. Some of the best story tellers on Snapchat push Snapchat’s features to its limits. For example, Taco Bell made a quiz to help you decide what to order and Cosmopolitan encourages viewers to screenshot and add drawings or text before sharing.
Snapchat Grows Up
August 2014
For quite sometime, Snapchat was just an app where you could take a selfie, draw a mustache and drop an emoji on it. With the launch of Our Story however, Snapchat began to grow up and become much more.
Our Story is a further extension of your friends stories. Essentially, Snapchat chooses a location, allows users in that area to upload their snaps to that story and then Snapchat curates the content for that event or city. These curated stories, such as a musical festival, are then shown on all Snapchat users’ live section.
It’s truly a unique perspective to view an event or city like this. Most importantly, it allows Snapchat to cross into the news realm and reach an older audience.
Discovery Shares The Wealth
January 2015
Early this year, Snapchat rolled out Discovery. This new feature allows publishers to share stories just as users share stories with their friends. It was a big move.
Where Facebook originally failed, Snapchat has successfully partnered with publishers on their platform and are sharing ad revenue. Publishers receive 70% of ad revenue deals they close and 50% that the Snapchat team closes.
Their approach to the partnership was completely different than Facebook’s original attempt to partner with publishers. First, there isn’t an algorithm that decides the content that is shown. Second, the content is complimentary to publishers other channels. Because the user experience is contained within the platform, it drives awareness for the publishers.
Snapchat Pushes Vertical Video
June 2015
“Fifty years ago, it would’ve been hard to believe that everyone would have a little TV in their pocket,” Spiegel says. His solution, 3V Advertising or vertical video views is pushing other platforms to rethink their mobile strategy.
YouTube has recently began showing vertical videos without the black side bars on mobile which was long overdue. However, there is still no word on a vertical video ad product.
Then at Cannes this year, Facebook shared a new mobile ad product. Taking a page from Snapchat’s playbook, the product is vertically displayed and encourages viewers to explore with the swipe of a finger.
