Snapchat
Snapchat is a popular social media platform that enables users to share photos and videos, referred to as "snaps," which can only be viewed for a limited time before they disappear. Launched in 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy, Snapchat quickly gained traction, particularly among younger audiences, making it a competitor to established platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The app includes features such as chat, stories, filters, and Bitmoji, allowing users to engage creatively with their content.
Despite its popularity, Snapchat has faced challenges, including competition from Instagram Stories, user dissatisfaction with app redesigns, and various controversies related to privacy and safety. Concerns have been raised regarding the app’s potential misuse for illegal activities, particularly involving minors. Nevertheless, Snapchat has continued to evolve, implementing new features and enhancing user engagement, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of the early 2020s, Snapchat boasts hundreds of millions of daily active users, maintaining its status as a favored platform among teens.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a social media platform that allows users to share photographs and videos through their smartphones. Snapchat users are able to send and receive picture and video messages, which are called snaps. What makes the application unique is that the snaps can be viewed only for a few seconds before they disappear. Snapchat also offers other features, including a chat feature and a stories feature. Snapchat rivals other social media services such as Facebook and Twitter, especially among younger populations. Over the years, Snapchat has had many controversies, yet it has remained popular.
Corporate History
Snapchat was founded by Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy in 2011. Spiegel and Brown, the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief marketing officer of Snapchat, respectively, were students at Stanford University when they met. While at Stanford in 2010, the college friends began developing a disappearing image application. They tapped Murphy as the app's developer, and he subsequently became chief technology officer. Snapchat, which was originally called Picaboo, was soon born. (Brown subsequently left the company before its official launch.) The application, which debuted in July 2011, began attracting users later that year.
Snapchat’s usage grew so quickly that in just two years, it caught the attention of Facebook, the popular social media platform. In November 2013, Mark Zuckerberg, the cofounder and CEO of Facebook, approached Spiegel and Murphy about buying the company. Zuckerberg offered the cofounders $3 billion for the company. Given their ownership in the company at the time, this meant that Spiegel and Murphy would each earn $750 million in the deal. However, not wanting to settle for a short-term gain, the cofounders turned down Zuckerberg’s offer. Rejecting the offer seemed to be the right move, as Snapchat raised $485 million from nearly two dozen investors in late 2014. At the time, the company was valued at $10 to $20 billion.
Over the next two years, Snapchat continued to grow, introducing new features and gaining more users. In 2016, the company rebranded as Snap Inc. and filed for its initial public offering (IPO). The following year, Snap Inc. went public. Despite initial success, the company faced competition from Instagram Stories, leading to stagnation in user growth in the late 2010s. Consequently, the company redesigned its app in 2018, leading to yet further decline in user engagement as many rejected the redesign. Still, new features like various filters and lenses appealed to many, and the company saw a resurgence in user engagement. That growth was further helped by the COVID-19 pandemic, which greatly boosted digital content consumption in 2020, thus benefiting the company. By the early 2020s, the company had over five thousand employees.
How It Works
A Snapchat user who wishes to send a snap to a friend must first take a photograph or video with their smartphone. The sender can then set the timer for the snap, which means they can choose the amount of time the snap can be viewed before it disappears. The sender also has the option of adding a caption to or drawing on the snap. Once the sender is satisfied with the snap, they send it to the other user. The recipient can then view the snap on their phone. After a few seconds, the snap will disappear from the recipient’s phone.
Snapchat also offers a chat feature. This feature, which is accessed through the Chat screen, allows users to send messages back and forth. The chat feature also allows users to share live video with each other. As with snaps, the messages and videos disappear after they are viewed.
Yet another aspect of Snapchat is the stories feature. A story is a string of snaps that acts as a narrative. The user creating the story chooses who can view it. For example, the user can decide that all users can view the story or that only the user's friends can view it. A story can be viewed for twenty-four hours. Popular features added since the app's launch included filters that add effects and change users' appearance in humorous or desired ways; Snap Map, which allows users to share their location with friends; and Bitmoji, a personal emoji that users can adapt and share in Chat.
Popularity
Snapchat became a hugely popular app, particularly among teenagers, who viewed it as a hipper version of social media platforms like Facebook. By 2016, Snapchat's usage was close to 200 million. About 20 percent of all iPhone owners in the United States were using Snapchat, and it was the most downloaded photo application among those users. One survey found that 60 percent of US smartphone owners between the ages of thirteen and thirty-four used Snapchat in 2016. Many used the application on a daily basis, as hundreds of millions of snaps were sent every day. After usage numbers dipped in 2018—likely the result of dissatisfaction with a major redesign of the application carried out that year—numbers began to rebound. By 2021, the app had close to 300 million daily active users, and in 2024, that number had surpassed 400 million. It remained most popular among young people. According to a Pew Research Center survey in 2022, 59 percent of teens reported using Snapchat.
Controversies
Since becoming a popular social media application, Snapchat has experienced its share of controversy. In 2013, the company was sued by Brown, who claimed that he had conceived the idea for Snapchat, designed its logo, and came up with the original Picaboo name before allegedly being forced out of the company in 2011. The case was settled in September 2014.
Another controversy occurred in late 2013, when Snapchat was hacked. About 4.6 million users were affected, and their usernames and part of their phone numbers were hacked.
Perhaps more concerning are allegations about the use of Snapchat in illegal activity. Since the app's launch, critics raised concerns about the application being used as a sexting tool. Sexting is the act of sending sexually explicit messages. Many believe that the design features of Snapchat create an environment that fosters such activity, including sexual abuse and unwanted contact from adults to minors. Controversies surrounding the use of the app in criminal activity and its involvement in perpetuating harm against children continued into the 2020s. Reports in 2024 revealed that employees at Snap Inc. had long raised concerns over the app's involvement in widespread sextortion, child grooming, and other dangers to minors and that management failed to act on such concerns. In response, the company touted its safety guardrails and policies that prevent strangers from discovering minors on the platform. In 2023, Snapchat introduced a new generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, called My AI, which offered recommendations and carried out dialogue with users. Many users, and parents of users, criticized the tool over privacy concerns and inappropriate interactions with the chatbot.
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