Snapchat’s domino effect
In 2011, Bobby Murphy and Evan Spiegel created Snapchat at Stanford University as part of one of Spiegel’s classes at Stanford. Since then, the application has exploded in popularity and is the new “it” app to have. Speaking from first hand experience, the application has only gotten more addicting over the past few months, and I find myself checking the app every day. The reason for the application’s success and addictiveness. Before snapchat, the only only send pictures or videos to friends. They would have a record of these pictures forever and could refer to them later on. The genius of snapchat is that senders can decide how many seconds they want the picture to be available, and afterwards, the picture is gone forever. In other words, snapchat forces you to pay attention for those few seconds that the picture is available. Snapchat has become one of the most downloaded apps on Apple’s app store because in order for you to receive your friend’s embarrassing snaps, you need an snapchat account. An app that is able to capture our generation’s attention in todays world is very valuable, BUT what is surprising is that Snapchat turned down a $3 Billion acquisition offer from Facebook. Maybe they’re on to something and are looking at ways to become even more engrained in our social networking lives.
As demonstrated in chapter 17, the way to achieve a strong positive network effect and user base for your product is to set your price really low and market it well. First, snapchat is currently free, so there is no cost to the user to switch to snapchat. As a result, they definitely surpassed their z’ and have upward pressure towards z”. Second, snapchat always gets a lot of press. Celebrities, friends, and news sources talk about it without any payment. Additionally, every time you tell your friends to download the app because it is free and fun, you are marketing the app for it. Therefore, even in the future if they begin to add more advertisements or charge for the app, they have a solid user base and are steady around z”.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/09/snapchat-attention_n_5459718.html