Snapchat has managed to build something lasting out of photos that vanished almost instantly. The fast-growing social network for millennials has come a long way since its founder Evan Spiegel dropped out of Stanford University in 2012, three classes shy of graduation. His goal at the time was to create a snappy way for people to send photos, videos and messages — all of which would disappear just 10 seconds after viewing.
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Snapchat cut a sharp contrast to Facebook and other social networks, which encouraged people to share and share often — even those spontaneous moments they might come to regret the next morning or at the next job interview. Snapchat, by contrast, let people show and share things that they do not want to last on the internet as a permanent record, said Ira Kalb, a marketing and branding professor at the University of Southern California.
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That feature, however, quickly associated the company with sexting, the sharing of sexually explicit photos through cellphone messaging. Had Snapchat done nothing else, it might well have faded quickly itself, as such fads often do.
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Instead, Snapchat showed a knack for evolving as its users did. It’s now a full-featured messaging service popular with millennials and big brands alike. It even rebranded as Snap Inc. and now calls itself a camera company.
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Now it’s hoping to make itself into a big winner on Wall Street as well. According to news reports, Snap is readying for a public stock offering that could value the company at $20 billion to $25 billion. Snap declined to comment.
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Refusing To Disappear
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The company has worked hard to roll out new features so users don’t get bored.
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Stories allows individuals and brands to create a narrative from messages, videos and photos from the past 24 hours. It’s so popular that Facebook’s Instagram now has a…