What is Snapchat? Snapchat Review

Background

Snapchat was born at a time when every young person, including their mom, thought they could easily develop a social app and become an entrepreneur. Facebook was for updating friends and family, Instagram was for sharing pretty photos, and Twitter was for chatting at cocktail parties. The “Big Three” controlled most of our conversations, but each had its own unique features, was equally powerful, and most importantly, had its own users. However, Snapchat was able to combine the strengths of the three to create a new social channel.

Basic Introduction

Snapchat is a photo-sharing app that allows users to not only take and send photos, but also control the viewing time of the receiving user (ranging from 1 to 10 seconds), so that the "wonderful" moment can only be shared for a short time. Once a user views the photo, the photo will completely disappear within 10 seconds and cannot be seen again. In addition, if the recipient tries to save the photo using a screenshot software, the sender will receive a notification. Then, it gradually developed into a social platform.

Active Users

As of February 2018, Snapchat had 187 million daily active users.

Development History

The original version of Snapchat was a pure "disappearing after reading" chat software. The text, pictures, and videos sent by users would be automatically destroyed after a set time. If the other party of the message took a screenshot, the system would notify the sender.

In June 2011, Picaboo, the predecessor of Snapchat, was launched. Its initial feature was the widely circulated “read and burn” feature.

In May 2012, 25 photos were sent on the platform every second, and by December of that year, the total number of photos had exceeded 1 billion.

At the end of 2012, Snapchat launched the Android version and the function of sending short videos.

In February 2013, the number of Snaps sent out on Snapchat reached 60 million per day.

In October 2013, Snapchat launched the "Stories" feature, which is a bit like WeChat Moments. The content posted can be seen by all friends, but it can only be kept for one day and will be automatically deleted after 24 hours. Snapchat has always maintained its obsession with "disappearing after viewing".

At the end of 2013, Snapchat launched the My Stories feature (later simplified to Stories), which allows users to record a video and add various special effects and subtitles, and then send it to friends or share it with all followers. Soon after its launch, the number of Stories on the platform exceeded the number of self-destructing messages, making Snapchat the most popular social network and content dissemination platform.

A new feature called "Geofilters" was added in July 2014, which made special graphical overlays available if the user was within a specific geographic location, such as a city, event, or destination.

In November 2014, Snapchat launched the "Snapcash" feature, which lets users send and receive money via private messages. The payment system is powered by Square.

In 2015, Snapchat launched the Discover feature, which allows users to receive information provided by top media companies. Partner media include National Geographic Magazine, Vice, ESPN, etc. A total of 11 partner media initially participated in it.

In June 2015, Snapchat's geofilter (filter based on location information) began to focus on advertising.

In September 2015, they acquired a facial recognition company, Looksery, which enhanced their animated selfie capabilities.

In June 2016, they quietly acquired Seene, a computer vision startup that allows users to take 3D selfies of themselves using their phones.

In July 2016, Snapchat introduced a new feature called "Memories". The Memories feature allows snaps and story posts to be saved to a private storage area where they can be viewed with other photos stored on the device, or edited and published as snaps, story posts or messages.

In September 2016, Snapchat Inc. changed its name to Snap Inc. and launched the company's first hardware gadget, Spectacles, a pair of smart glasses with a built-in camera that can record 10 seconds of video at a time.

In May 2017, an update made it possible to send snaps with unlimited viewing time, with a maximum viewing time reduced to the last 10 seconds, and having them disappear after the recipient deliberately closes the content.

In June 2017, Snapchat launched Snap Map, an opt-in feature that lets you share your location with friends on a map.

In June 2017, Snapchat began allowing users to add links to their snaps, allowing them to direct viewers to specific websites.

Financing

In April 2012, Guangxian Capital injected RMB 485,000 in seed round investment.

In February 2013, Snapchat announced that it had received $13.5 million in Series A funding, with a valuation of $70 million.

In June 2013, Snapchat completed a $60 million Series B financing round.

In December 2013, Snapchat completed a $50 million Series C financing round from private equity investment firm Coatue Management.

In May 2015, Snapchat successfully raised $537 million in a private placement, which valued it at $16 billion.

In early 2016, Snapchat raised $175 million in funding, with Fidelity Investments as the investor.

In March 2016, it received US$200 million (Round E) in financing from Alibaba.

In May 2016, Snapchat completed its Series F financing with a total amount of US$1.81 billion. Investors in this round of financing included General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, T. Rowe Price, Lone Pine, Glade Brook Capital, IVP, Coatue Management and Fidelity, etc.

References

• 1. How does Snapchat survive in the competition with Facebook and other products? : Everyone is a product manager [cited on 2017-02-04T16:00:00.000Z]