Snap, Inc., the parent company of SnapChat, self-identifies as a camera company. This new “camera company” is about to unveil its initial public offering and raise billions of dollars in the process.
It’s a topic we explored thoroughly on The Bean Cast this week.
Snap reported that its messaging service had 158 million daily active users at the end of 2016, and an average of 2.5 billion “snaps” are created on Snapchat every day.
Snap makes money from ads on the platform and content created by third-party channels such as news organizations. The company also recently introduced a hardware product, Snapchat Specs, and has a payment feature called Snapcash.
Bean Cast host, Bob Knorpp, said, “The camera (for Snappers) is just like an extension of the eye. Just the like the eye, it sees something and it goes away. This is a way to share the moment. The camera becomes a tool for sharing moments, as opposed to than remembering moments, which is a whole different paradigm that older generations find hard to grasp.”
Could it be that Millenials and Centennials are so opposed to owning stuff that they don’t want a photo album or even a digital collection of past moments on Flickr? Perhaps. It could also be that the camera is being disrupted again, and that smart investors in the evolving tech game are about to feast.
Dan Goldgeier
David Burn
Shawn Hartley
Wade Sturdivant