Facebook Copying Snapchat

Back when Microsoft was doing this sort of thing they encountered anti-trust concerns.  The EU eventually forced them to take action.

Wonder how long Facebook has?  Read on:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/09/facebook-copies-snapchat-examples.html

Here is a snippet from the piece:

Mark Zuckerberg's company tried to purchase Snap for $3 billion in 2013, but the camera company politely declined the offer. Since then Snapchat's popularity and worth have skyrocketed. The company's market cap has been pegged as high as $34 billion, and held its initial public offering on March 2.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

SnapChat as a $1B Company and LinkedIn at $26B

Not too much amusing about a company valued with a 'B' in the number.  Pretty huge stuff.

Read on:

http://www.recode.net/2016/6/14/11926704/snapchat-advertising-api

Here is a snippet from the piece:

Snapchat made a bunch of advertising announcements Monday via a feature story in AdWeek. The two most important elements of the company’s strategy, outlined below, paint a clear picture for how Snapchat plans to grow.

Social media continues to overperform the expectations I used to have, including the $26B purchase of LinkedIn by Microsoft.  Not underestimating any of it any more.

Here is the LinkedIn news:

http://www.recode.net/2016/6/13/11920416/linkedin-acquisition-microsoft-reasons

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Snapchat Geofilters and PepsiCo on Digital

I'm clumping two stories together today as they are related.

First is a fun little read on Snapchat's growing marketing capabilities that are benefiting quick service restaurants most of all.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/why-qsrs-retail-brands-see-highest-commerce-potential-with-snapchat-geofilters

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Marketers such as McDonald’s and Lilly Pulitzer are taking to social media to invite their customers to snap photos in their physical establishments, emblazon them with branded geofilters on photo-sharing application Snapchat and send them to friends or family. As location-based data becomes even more prevalent this year, this strategy could indirectly aggregate more new customers as mobile users become inspired by their friends’ Snaps and head to local stores to purchase items.

“In terms of leveraging branded geofilter stickers specifically: that is obviously just one of the ways to capitalize on an increasingly robust segmentation and targeting toolkit offered by Snapchat,” said James McNally, director of business development at Fuzz Productions, Brooklyn, NY.

Next is a brief interview with a PepsiCo digital marketing rep:

http://www.canadiangrocer.com/top-stories/pepsicos-james-clarke-talks-digital-55083

Here is a snippet from that piece:

PepsiCo Foods Canada has a strong marketing team – I’d say one of the best in the industry. We had a new CMO join the Canadian organization last year and one of her asks of the marketing department is to implement a 70-20-10 rule in our 2016 plans: 70% of time and money should be dedicated to “tried and true” channels, 20% to “safe bets” and 10% to “experimental/cutting edge” opportunities. The 10% is a great place to explore some of these emerging digital spaces – this where amazing things can happen.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Eye Popping Valuation for Snapchat

Snapchat, previously the little txting (sxting) app for teenagers, has just raised another $573M as it heads towards an inevitable initial public offering.

Wow!

That funding creates a valuation for the private company at $16B, yes that is a 'B' for Billion, that is in the stratosphere for app companies.  This is a really big deal folks and will change the way brands interact with its customers.

Here is the story:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/250924/snapchat-raises-573m-eyes-ipo.html?edition=83247

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Having officially shed its fad status, Snapchat is redefining the way young consumers communicate, posting some serious usership figures.

Snapchat has 100 million users who watch an astonishing 2 billion videos per day, according to internal figures. That’s half the volume of videos viewed on Facebook, even though the latter is far larger in size.

In addition, Snapchat now claims that 60% of smartphone users aged 13 to 34 are active on the service.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Mobile Chat and Facebook

$19B is what Facebook spent on an app called 'WhatsApp'.  Wow.  How has this played out?

Facebook currently has 4 of the top 21 apps on both the Apple and Google app stores (4 of the top 11 on Apple's).

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102435643

Here is a snippet from that piece:

The $19 billion price tag for WhatsApp was — and remains — a head-scratcher for some. But putting price aside, the acquisition makes a ton of sense. Facebook seems to have put aside their plan to build their own smartphone and what do you do if you can't compete on hardware? You compete on software. Google recognized this when they acquired Android in 2005 and Facebook did the same after acquiring companies like Instagram and WhatsApp.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Has Google Peaked? How Has Facebook Done Better?

Very good article over on SlashDot about Google and how their efforts in advertising compares to Facebook:

http://tech-beta.slashdot.org/story/15/02/13/0058234/peak-google-the-companys-time-at-the-top-may-be-nearing-its-end

This article references a NYT piece but I'm a fan of SlashDot.  Here is a snippet from that piece:

Farhad Manjoo writes at the NYT that at first glance Google looks plenty healthy, but growth in Google's primary business, search advertising, has flattened out at about 20 percent a year for the last few years. Although Google has spent considerable resources inventing technologies for the future, it has failed to turn many of its innovations into new moneymakers.

Time for me to eat some crow?  Here is what I predicted about Facebook 13 months ago:

http://thagent.blogspot.com/2014/01/news-from-2013-and-what-will-make-news.html

• Facebook will see big declines.  The "services" provided by Facebook have been chipped away at by a variety of other solutions such as Vine and Snapchat.  Overall the next generation of users has no interest in Facebook and this will begin to show itself this year.  Maybe the company will be mostly flat, maybe they'll find incremental ways to monetize their current offering, but the decline will be noticeable this year.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Snapchat Messaging App Raises $486 Million

If you haven't heard of it, or used it, yet you just might want to give it a try.  Let me tell you it is great fun at group outings.

Snapchat is the anti-Facebook of messaging apps with its destructible messaging.  Just set the timer, to no longer than 10 seconds, take your picture of video and send you message.  Your friends will receive a notice to open the message.  Once they've done so they have only the length of time you set to view the message before it is destroyed.

No more reputation management for your messaging.

I'm sure this round of funding was spurred by this study on Snapchat advertising commisioned by Snapchat:

http://adage.com/article/digital/snapchat-commissioned-survey-shows-people-snapchat-ads/296442/

Here is the story about the funding:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/01/01/snapchat-funding/21146715/

Should be an interesting year in social media.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant