Consider Snapchat. Many analysts saw the wildly successful
camera app as a potential horseman. A brainchild of Stanford grad
students, it stormed out of the gate in 2011, offering a way to send
instant photos and videos to friends. The added wrinkle was that
videos went poof after a few seconds or hours. It was gaffe insurance,
and people felt free to share more intimate content—without worrying
about it being seen by a future mate or employer. The ephemeral
nature of the content also creates a sense of urgency, resulting in
better engagement (cue advertisers salivating). Finally, Snap appeals
to teens, a notoriously difficult and influential segment.
Snapchat has added lots of features in the months since its
founding. It has even pushed into TV, launching a mobile video
channel. In 2017, the company is gaining fast on Twitter, and had 161
million daily users when it filed for an IPO.^22 It IPO’d with a value of
$33 billion.^23
We’ll see. Facebook already is positioning itself to crush the young
company. Imran Khan, the company’s chief strategy officer, claimed:
“Snapchat is a camera company. It is not a social company.”
I don’t know if it’s the scorn the Zuck feels after Evan rejected his
overtures about acquisition, or a warranted response to a threat. But I
believe the first thing Mark Zuckerberg thinks when he opens his eyes
in the morning, and the last as he closes them at night, is: “We’re
going to wipe Snap Inc. off the face of the planet.” And he will.
Zuckerberg understands images are Facebook’s killer app, much of
it residing in the Instagram wing of his social empire. We absorb
imagery sixty thousand times faster than words.^24 So, images make a
beeline for the heart. And if Snapchat is threatening to hive off a
meaningful chunk of that market, or even climb into the lead, that
threat must be quashed.
To do this, Facebook is developing a new camera-first interface in
Ireland. It’s a clone of Snapchat. In a 2016 earnings call, Zuckerberg
said, and this may sound oddly similar: “We believe that a camera will
be the way that we share.”
Facebook has already appropriated (that is, stolen) other Snapchat
ideas, including Quick Updates, Stories, selfie filters, and one-hour
messages. The trend will only continue—unless the government gets in
the way. Facebook is a Burmese python consuming a cow. While the