I honestly cannot believe that this is our second to last seminar. However, thinking back, we have come so far from that first seminar when we were just discussing the beginning of the ARPAnet that it is mind boggling. I have learned so much through this experience that I wouldn’t have in a traditional class, which has made this seminar one of the most formative experiences of my freshman fall. Consequently, I cannot thank Professor Waldo and Dean Smith enough for the work they have put in to make this class a reality.
This week the topic we discussed was online communities, anonymity, identification, and the right to be forgotten on the Internet. One interesting idea that came up during our discussion was the hypothesis that people like Snapchat because it has no positive or negative reinforcement in the form of likes or comments that are fundamental to other platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. I never really thought about this before or the reasons why I use Snapchat, but it makes sense. Because we are not going to discuss social media in the upcoming week, I want to discuss this further.
From my research, it is evident that millennials love to use Snapchat because it contains certain features that remove the concerns about identity that plague the Internet. First of all, as we discussed in class, Snapchat has no positive or negative reinforcement. This is huge for a popular social media platform because so much of our society today is about competition. People post on Facebook and Instagram with the thought of how many likes or comments their post will receive always lurking in the back of their mind, but with Snapchat, this is not the case. Users are more willingly to share what they truly want to share because they are not concerned about the recognition a photo or video will grant them. Furthermore, Snapchat completely eliminates the problem of posts persisting through time, which often creates an identity for a specific individual on the Internet that he or she dislikes because it is not an accurate representation. On services like Facebook, something embarrassing that you posted five years ago may still be visible today unless you deleted it. Contrastingly, on Snapchat, all posts delete automatically, whether that be after at most 10 seconds for photos and videos sent to friends or 24 hours for stories. This is a crucial part of why Snapchat has so much favor among millennials. Users don’t have to worry about what they post being on the Internet indefinitely because their posts are disposable, meaning that they are more inclined to post photos and videos that truly align with their current identity. Lastly, Snapchat is personable and consists of smaller social circles than other social media groups. To become friends with someone on Snapchat, you must either know his or her username or phone number. Thus, it is much more difficult to develop a large social circle on Snapchat than it is to on say Facebook. Consequently, because of this smaller social setting, Snapchat is intimate compared to other services as users are often more trusting of their following base.
In whole, identity is not a permanent set of characteristics, but rather it changes. Currently, Snapchat is the only major social media platform that takes this into account.
Hi Doug! I was making my last rounds of the blog and wanted to reply to your post. Thanks for the thoughts on snapchat and the pointer to the interesting article. What do you think about Snapchat Spectacles? Do they affect any of what you wrote or perhaps emphasize some of your particular points? It is certainly an interesting company.
Overall, I want to thank you for being a part of our seminar this fall. It was fantastic to have you in class, get to know you, and learn about your experiences in life. I wish you the very best in the new year and hope to see you around campus!
Hi Dean Smith! Thank you so much, and I am so gracious to have been a part of this seminar! About the Snap Spectacles, I think they are an awesome move for the company. Snapchat does not really have any way to monetize in its current state besides a few ads here and there, so instead of experiencing financial troubles like Twitter, they are revolutionizing their business model. Snapchat pretty much had two options, which were either to make users pay for their service or find a way to generate revenue in another way, which is what they did. Relating back to my previous post, if Snapchat made their service a paid only service, they would have lost a significant amount of their millennial user base, causing them to no longer be the go-to social media platform for many. However, with the Spectacles, they are reaffirming their spot as the “hip” social media for millennials while also generating revenue. See, millennials refuse to pay for a service. but they are willing to pay for a product. While I honestly think the Spectacles are quite silly for everyday use, they are genius in the fact that they practically rebrand the GoPro-style POV camera in a form that is less obtrusive and obnoxious for everyday use. Additionally, the marketing of the Spectacles is helping them create a brand for themselves and hype around their new products. Overall, I think it’s quite interesting that Snap is transforming their company from a social media platform to more of a photography company.
Makes perfect sense. I’m very interested to see how the styling changes as Snap moves to version 2. Also, will they target a few practical markets? And while I admit I haven’t spent much time investigating it, it seems like Snap is experimenting in the product distribution space too (with their “Find a Bot” teaser). Very interesting company!