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I know that the Snapchat platform is worth something, it has high engagement and adoption of 18-24 year old age segment, and that is worth a lot in terms of att

I know that the Snapchat platform is worth something, it has high engagement and adoption of 18-24 year old age segment, and that is worth a lot in terms of attention and advertising $s. However, this just feels completely out of proportion to earnings and downside does not seem priced in. Willing to be proved wrong of course, but especially seeing as they are non voting shares, I cannot understand this pricing.

empath75 10y ago
FOMO. And the market is really frothy in general right now.
- komali2 10y ago
  For some reason whenever people use the word "frothy" to describe something, I gag slightly.
  - knicholes 10y ago
    Probably it's from the maturation clinic you took in school where they covered STIs. That and "cheesy."
    - komali2 10y ago
      Nah as a Wisconsite "cheesy" just describes the natural state of food for me ;P
23443463453 10y ago
It makes absolutely zero sense to me too, but what do I know, other than that the idea seems to be that snapchat, like Facebook before it, is seen as the drug that compels today's generations. It was newspapers, radio, and TV before and now it's Snapchat after Facebook. At least I think that's the reasoning. If you can capture people's minds and compel them to put real money into people's pockets, then you can capture the whole of society. If you think about it, we are somewhat still in an equivalent world where there were only a few radio or TV stations, i.e., Facebook, Google Ads, Snapchat, etc. who command the minds of ever more people in the world. It's a de facto cartel monopolized market not unlike the Robber Baron period of American history, where few dominated the vast majority of economic activity with their stranglehold. Unfortunately, due to the inherent network effect of the internet and technology, it will only ever increasingly become a race for who can steal away the vast majority of human minds of the ever increasing digital human herd. Snapchat will have its day as Facebook starts atrophying and contracting as people shift to Snapchat, then something else will come to poach away a future generation that is then ridden to poach away minds from Snapchat. It will be an ever repeating cycle of one company stealing away the vast majority of minds from the last company. At least as long as certain conditions are true.
michaelbuckbee 10y ago
The hard part with these things is that in some ways progress and growth is non-linear. So Snap has (by all accounts) done a masterful job of launching their first hardware product: https://www.spectacles.com/ https://www.spectacles.com/ How do you value that? I'm of the opinion that AR style glasses are the technology that will be the next tech wave post mobile phones (FB buying Oculus and Google pushing so much money on MagicLeap is explained for a similar reason). So how do you consider Snap's Spectacles? Say there's a 10% chance that they become the initial dominant hardware player in the post-phone mobile space? What's that worth?
- elsewhen 10y ago
  spectacles are record-only at the moment without any viewing for the wearer. adding user-viewing is at least one order of magnitude more difficult than the current device. is there any evidence that spectacles will be transitioned into AR?
- tln 10y ago
  spectacles aren't AR... do you think they will move that way? If snaps taken with spectacles ever make up more than a % or two of snaps, I will be surprised.
- idiot_stick 10y ago
  >How do you value that? It's a pair of glasses that stream video from a camera. I'm not saying it's not cool, but what is so crazy about it that it's hard to value? >What's that worth? If you're buying IPO shares and can't answer that question yourself, you're probably doing something wrong.
  - michaelbuckbee 10y ago
    To me, it's a thought experiment about where SnapChat will be a few years in the future. Consider that they are pretty indisputably the leaders in terms of shipping real, actual working AR on mobile -> https://youtu.be/Pc2aJxnmzh0 https://youtu.be/Pc2aJxnmzh0 So "how do you value" the number one AR company on the planet having shipped their first hardware device that: - Has sidestepped all the "glasshole" baggage of Google Glass - Genuinely nice looking non "borg" styling - Actually works as intended - Masterfully executed on a unique and successful marketing rollout. I completely agree on your point that it's a "pair of glasses that stream video from a camera", the important thing is that they've built a whole distribution and demand system where that is actually something people want in large numbers. So, compared to MagicLeap, HoloLens, etc. SnapChat is working from a "worse is better" standpoint where their v1 is horrible on a feature vs feature basis against the Hololens (and presumably whatever MagicLeap is going to ship). But, I feel pretty confident in thinking that they're selling many more units of their Spectacles (at $129) than Hololens (at $3,000) and they're learning at a much faster rate. The question is: What will Spectacles v2-v5 look like? At what point do they not need a mobile phone? At what point can they make phone calls? At what point do they get gestural support (another area where Snapchat feels like a leader on mobile). It's hard to look at an early click-wheel, monochrome screen iPod and see a mobile phone ecosystem worth trillions of dollars and I think it's far from certain that Spectacles are the equivalent, but I think there is a real chance that is the case.
InternetUser 10y ago
And that's not their only product: Bitmoji has been the #1 iPhone app overall since January 11, and it was already the #1 iPhone Utility app since July 22, 2016 (Log in to see) - https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/app/bitmoji-keyboard-your-avatar/rank-history/#vtype=day&countries=US&start_date=2014-09-09&end_date=2017-03-02&device=iphone&view=rank&lm=7 https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/app/bitmoji-keyboard-your-... https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/top/united-states/overall/iphone/ https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/top/united-states/overall/... And yesterday on eBay, 22 pairs of Spectacles were sold, with one pair went for $229 and 2 others went for $200 each, even though http://www.spectacles.com http://www.spectacles.com has been offering them for $130 since last Monday - http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=snapchat+spectacles&_sop=13 http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_from... Then there is the rumored Android Snap Phone: http://mashable.com/2017/02/14/snapchat-phone-concept-design-mediakix/#yE1hJFZjZPqp http://mashable.com/2017/02/14/snapchat-phone-concept-design... And Snap Drones, as reported on page 2 of today's NYTimes - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/technology/snapchat-drone.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/technology/snapchat-drone... http://i.imgur.com/6Nl0Ymq.jpg http://i.imgur.com/6Nl0Ymq.jpg
- moolcool 10y ago
  Remember the phone made by HTC and Facebook? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First
  - notadoc 10y ago
    Or Amazon
- vadym909 10y ago
  Trend moving from So(cial)-Lo(cal)-Mo(bile) to AI-AR-Dr(one)-SDR(self driving)
  - InternetUser 10y ago
    That is actually quite brilliant. Did you just make that up? I can't find it in Google.
Stanleyc23 10y ago
for the majority of would-be shareholders is non-voting shares really that big of a problem, genuinely curious? Even if the votes:shares were 1:1 wouldn't you need a huge percentage (like > 10%) to be an influencer? If I as an 'average Joe' were to personally put down a comparatively minuscule $25k on SNAP would those votes count for much when push comes to shove?

empath75 10y ago

FOMO. And the market is really frothy in general right now.

komali2 10y ago
For some reason whenever people use the word "frothy" to describe something, I gag slightly.
- knicholes 10y ago
  Probably it's from the maturation clinic you took in school where they covered STIs. That and "cheesy."
  - komali2 10y ago
    Nah as a Wisconsite "cheesy" just describes the natural state of food for me ;P

23443463453 10y ago

It makes absolutely zero sense to me too, but what do I know, other than that the idea seems to be that snapchat, like Facebook before it, is seen as the drug that compels today's generations. It was newspapers, radio, and TV before and now it's Snapchat after Facebook. At least I think that's the reasoning. If you can capture people's minds and compel them to put real money into people's pockets, then you can capture the whole of society. If you think about it, we are somewhat still in an equivalent world where there were only a few radio or TV stations, i.e., Facebook, Google Ads, Snapchat, etc. who command the minds of ever more people in the world. It's a de facto cartel monopolized market not unlike the Robber Baron period of American history, where few dominated the vast majority of economic activity with their stranglehold. Unfortunately, due to the inherent network effect of the internet and technology, it will only ever increasingly become a race for who can steal away the vast majority of human minds of the ever increasing digital human herd. Snapchat will have its day as Facebook starts atrophying and contracting as people shift to Snapchat, then something else will come to poach away a future generation that is then ridden to poach away minds from Snapchat. It will be an ever repeating cycle of one company stealing away the vast majority of minds from the last company. At least as long as certain conditions are true.

michaelbuckbee 10y ago

The hard part with these things is that in some ways progress and growth is non-linear. So Snap has (by all accounts) done a masterful job of launching their first hardware product: https://www.spectacles.com/ https://www.spectacles.com/ How do you value that? I'm of the opinion that AR style glasses are the technology that will be the next tech wave post mobile phones (FB buying Oculus and Google pushing so much money on MagicLeap is explained for a similar reason). So how do you consider Snap's Spectacles? Say there's a 10% chance that they become the initial dominant hardware player in the post-phone mobile space? What's that worth?

elsewhen 10y ago
spectacles are record-only at the moment without any viewing for the wearer. adding user-viewing is at least one order of magnitude more difficult than the current device. is there any evidence that spectacles will be transitioned into AR?
tln 10y ago
spectacles aren't AR... do you think they will move that way? If snaps taken with spectacles ever make up more than a % or two of snaps, I will be surprised.
idiot_stick 10y ago
>How do you value that? It's a pair of glasses that stream video from a camera. I'm not saying it's not cool, but what is so crazy about it that it's hard to value? >What's that worth? If you're buying IPO shares and can't answer that question yourself, you're probably doing something wrong.
- michaelbuckbee 10y ago
  To me, it's a thought experiment about where SnapChat will be a few years in the future. Consider that they are pretty indisputably the leaders in terms of shipping real, actual working AR on mobile -> https://youtu.be/Pc2aJxnmzh0 https://youtu.be/Pc2aJxnmzh0 So "how do you value" the number one AR company on the planet having shipped their first hardware device that: - Has sidestepped all the "glasshole" baggage of Google Glass - Genuinely nice looking non "borg" styling - Actually works as intended - Masterfully executed on a unique and successful marketing rollout. I completely agree on your point that it's a "pair of glasses that stream video from a camera", the important thing is that they've built a whole distribution and demand system where that is actually something people want in large numbers. So, compared to MagicLeap, HoloLens, etc. SnapChat is working from a "worse is better" standpoint where their v1 is horrible on a feature vs feature basis against the Hololens (and presumably whatever MagicLeap is going to ship). But, I feel pretty confident in thinking that they're selling many more units of their Spectacles (at $129) than Hololens (at $3,000) and they're learning at a much faster rate. The question is: What will Spectacles v2-v5 look like? At what point do they not need a mobile phone? At what point can they make phone calls? At what point do they get gestural support (another area where Snapchat feels like a leader on mobile). It's hard to look at an early click-wheel, monochrome screen iPod and see a mobile phone ecosystem worth trillions of dollars and I think it's far from certain that Spectacles are the equivalent, but I think there is a real chance that is the case.

InternetUser 10y ago

And that's not their only product: Bitmoji has been the #1 iPhone app overall since January 11, and it was already the #1 iPhone Utility app since July 22, 2016 (Log in to see) - https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/app/bitmoji-keyboard-your-avatar/rank-history/#vtype=day&countries=US&start_date=2014-09-09&end_date=2017-03-02&device=iphone&view=rank&lm=7 https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/app/bitmoji-keyboard-your-... https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/top/united-states/overall/iphone/ https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/top/united-states/overall/... And yesterday on eBay, 22 pairs of Spectacles were sold, with one pair went for $229 and 2 others went for $200 each, even though http://www.spectacles.com http://www.spectacles.com has been offering them for $130 since last Monday - http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=snapchat+spectacles&_sop=13 http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_from... Then there is the rumored Android Snap Phone: http://mashable.com/2017/02/14/snapchat-phone-concept-design-mediakix/#yE1hJFZjZPqp http://mashable.com/2017/02/14/snapchat-phone-concept-design... And Snap Drones, as reported on page 2 of today's NYTimes - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/technology/snapchat-drone.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/technology/snapchat-drone... http://i.imgur.com/6Nl0Ymq.jpg http://i.imgur.com/6Nl0Ymq.jpg

moolcool 10y ago
Remember the phone made by HTC and Facebook? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First
- notadoc 10y ago
  Or Amazon
vadym909 10y ago
Trend moving from So(cial)-Lo(cal)-Mo(bile) to AI-AR-Dr(one)-SDR(self driving)
- InternetUser 10y ago
  That is actually quite brilliant. Did you just make that up? I can't find it in Google.

Stanleyc23 10y ago

for the majority of would-be shareholders is non-voting shares really that big of a problem, genuinely curious? Even if the votes:shares were 1:1 wouldn't you need a huge percentage (like > 10%) to be an influencer? If I as an 'average Joe' were to personally put down a comparatively minuscule $25k on SNAP would those votes count for much when push comes to shove?