It was born as an instant messaging service characterized by the volatility of messages exchanged between users. This was the factor that determined its initial success, so much so that in 2014 Facebook attempted to buy it without success.
The relational model is asymmetric, like Twitter and Instagram: you follow Snapchatters and you see their stories. We will go into more technical details of how it works in a future article. Generally speaking, Snapchat is cell phone number database for anyone who has a story to tell . Or for anyone who wants to make their daily life a tellable story. And it is for everyone: for me, the private person who publishes my variety of semi-serious things about what I am doing, for Paris Hilton who flaunts the luxury of the places she visits and the ugliness of her dogs, for brands that show the behind the scenes of office life without the need to respect canons, in a direct, lively, fun and non-binding way.
I mean, if you thought Facebook was “just for fun,” you have no idea what Snapchat is capable of.
The numbers
Analysts expect Snapchat to reach a turnover of between 300 and 350 million this year, and to better understand its rapid growth, consider that last year the turnover was “only” 50 million. Active users are around 200 million according to 2015 data (in Italy they are around 500 thousand, in strong growth). In short, numbers that exactly follow the path taken by Facebook in its first years of life.
Snapchat has found its own continuous market especially with the sale of advertising, since the time of Social Advertising is now ripe, unlike what happened in the early years of Facebook. There are events that can be followed live (which attract a lot of interest among advertising agencies especially in the US), there is the so-called “Discover section” where advertisements are hosted, and again, there is a system of sales of sponsored photos, particularly popular during election campaigns (in favor of the thesis that in the US the average age of users is rising).