Snapchat: how so popular?
http://digg.com/2015/snapchat-history
How does an app go from being unknown to having over 300 million active users? As of August 2017, with over a million snaps created everyday, Snapchat tops the chart as the leading social media and networking site used by teenagers and young adults in the United States. The article enumerates some of the app’s features that helped it earn its crown including its unique picture-video messaging system that transformed the way teens communicate with each other. The article explains that the creators of Snapchat understood the aspect of modern society that is in constant need of accessing information in a timely manner. Snapchat fits this niche perfectly; creating a visual communication system that can be used for immediate consumption. The added feature of self destructing messages mimics real life interactions in a virtual setting, (what you say or do may be remembered but ultimately disappears and can not be stored, much like face to face interactions) hence why it has become so popular in the past year.
Source: https://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/305056-image/Snap-Generation-A-Guide-to-History-of-Snapchat-GaryVee.png
While the article offers other structural and characteristic explanations for the app’s popularity, from a network analysis-based standpoint, I can offer direct-benefit and information-based reasons to explain why the app continues to enjoy such popularity.
From the topics covered in class, we know that information-based reasons are those that use the behavior of others to convey information that can be useful in making decisions for ourselves. In deciding to download and begin using the app, for example, it helps to know how many other people are doing the same because it gives us information about whether the app is worth downloading. Each additional download from another person conveys information to prospective users about the app’s worth. There is then the opportunity for an information cascade to form which would lead to large numbers of people following the behavior of a few, ultimately explaining Snapchat’s explosive rise to fame.
In addition to this information-based reasoning for the app’s popularity, users experience a direct benefit by aligning their behaviors with that of other users, regardless of whether the behavior itself is beneficial in isolation. For instance, if all of a user’s friends are on snapchat, that user experiences a direct benefit from using the app as they can now enjoy direct contact with their circle of friends. The app is, intuitively, more fun and useful when a lot of other people are also using it. This makes the app inherently more valuable, creating an incentive for others to download it as well.