History of Snapchat: From Timed Selfies to 'Discover' Feature
By Dante Parente
How did Snapchat start?
The year is 2011. Imagine you are a junior at Stanford University named Reggie Brown. You can’t focus on school because all you can think about is this social media app idea you have in your brain. This idea, in your mind, would allow users to send pictures to friends that would disappear in a short time. You approach your friends, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, about your idea and the three of you form Picaboo.
Now this whole situation sounds wild, right?
Fast forward to 2022. That wild idea you came up with has 332 million daily users and $1.06 billion in revenue.
That is Snapchats story. Three college students revolutionized social media through visual communication. Sure, you can post pictures on any social platform, but no other platform sports the core principle of timed pictures/videos.
Snapchat Core Features
At the beginning, Snapchat was timed pictures only. That’s it. I know, it’s hard to imagine Snapchat nowadays where all you can do is send a picture that will disappear in ten seconds.
Videos, Stories, Chat: The Big Leap
Snapchat evolved just one year into existence with the introduction of video snaps. Although only 10 seconds long, videos push daily snaps across the platform to 50 million per day.
Simply put, videos improved Snapchat immensely because it gave users a second medium to send messages to fellow users. On social media, it’s all about providing users with different ways to communicate with others. Snapchat took its simple picture message method and evolved it to suite the video-driven consumers.
Yes, videos improved Snapchat’s overall visual communication theme. However, stories and chat took Snapchat to the next level in 2013. The chat function was not something Snapchat created. In fact, said feature had been a product of the internet for years before its Snapchat inception.
Stories on the other hand revolutionized posting on social media. They are analogous to posting a photo on Instagram, but with the Snapchat flair of going away after 24 hours. Not only did stories change Snapchat, but they also changed other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook as each adopted its own version of stories.
By 2015, Snapchat was reaching 75 million users each month. 75 million! What started as an idea—an odd one to be frank—turned into a social media app that changed how other platforms conveyed content between users.
Geofilters
Geofilters added to Snapchat’s visual communication model by allowing users to share where they are through their snap pictures/videos. Not only could users share their location, but specific filters were also designed to capture the essence and theme of that person’s location.
For example, one could be at a Pirates game, snap a picture of the beautiful Pittsburgh skyline, and put a specific PNC Park filter on the image. Filters improved the visual communication model by enhancing pictures and videos users post on their stories or send individually to friends
‘Discover’
Snapchat also added to the user experience by introducing its ‘Discover’ feature. This feature basically serves as a news feed that is tailored to each user. News is posted from different publishers and presented to consumers in Snapchat’s story format.
Snapchat Advertising
Snapchat, like any growing company, wanted to continually increase revenue. The chief way to do that when you have hundreds of millions of users is through advertising.
Advertising accounts for 99% of Snapchat’s revenue. 99%! Any user can attest that ads are extremely prevalent on Snapchat. While they are prevalent, they do not interfere with the user experience. 9 times out of 10 users can click through the ad and are not forced to watch the whole thing between different stories.
99% of Snapchat’s revenue comes from advertising.