SnapChat vs. Facebook (vs. Google)

Why Facebook won't beat SnapChat?

Facebook was developed as a desktop first site and later got transformed for mobile use this is where the problems started if you ask me. There was no innovation and Facebook probably knew it when analyzing its new users over time. So they bought creativity: Instagram, WhatsApp and SnapChat (failed, which is nice to keep things interesting :)).

On the other hand SnapChat was built from the ground up, they rethought the way we share, make photo′s, how to be funny/creative and tell stories (some better than others). This is how you (apparently) reach young people who have no social obligation yet.

Why snapChat will never reach 35+ year olds and a billion users?

I believe the current SnapChat concept does not allow to grow the numbers like Facebook because of two things:

1. Laggards who didn't want to use FB at first collapsed under the "fear of missing out" pressure. That fear of missing out is just not the same for SnapChat, because;
2. SnapChat is a goofy, creative and visual app. And I could be wrong (of course I could) but I just can't imagine 35+ year olds (all the way up to 60+) who will “get it”, and I mostly mean getting it as in “feeling it”. I just hear it all too much around me, people just not getting SnapChat, both in the "How to use it" and "What's the point?" kind of feedback.

So how about Google? (Just to drop another name into the equation)

I often ask myself: Why are social platforms so sensitive to competitors and unable to attract the young? (Yes, I ask myself these things) And why is a company like Google (with search) not having this similar problem? I can think of few things:

1. Search is mostly serious, urgent and has nothing to do with your image. So my idea is that the young are using references from the people they trust in order to decide what is a good tool for searching online. (eg. older brother/sister, teacher or even their parents)
2. Search isn’t Social (they proved this with Google+), so 15-30 year olds might just not care about their parents using it and ads in google are different.

My predictions

Facebook will extract lots of ad dollars for years to come, but will be a news site or something like that in the end. Facebook’s current youngest users will disappear from the platform more and more.

SnapChat needs to continue bringing in those 15-30 year olds which will be challenging as they eventually bring ads to the platform after their IPO (or they know a way to innovate and generate income differently, but I doubt that). And finally they also will fail to stay innovative and act accordingly when new trends in tech/digital/entertainment arise. Eventually resulting in an email to Evan from some girl or guy saying: ”I’m happy to meet you… if you come to me.”.