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Ghost of the Past: Snapchat’s Struggle With Reinvention
A decade is a really long time. I am 33 years old currently, and I think a lot about who I was at 23 years old. It feels like I am a totally different person than I am now. There are things that I miss about my younger self, but I also appreciate the growth from there into what I am today. In that sense, I feel like services and companies will occasionally mimic humanity, life reflecting business if you will. In the social media era, there have been a staple of players and they have slowly evolved from what they were into what they are today. While all the players have re-imagined themselves in some way or another, none have seemed to change what they once were more than Snapchat. The app is an interesting case study in the chase for reinvention in the mobile age.
Boom Goes The Message
Snapchat at launch gave a refreshing take on communication with friends. The original concept was simple, send a photo based message to a friend that they can view for up to 10 seconds. After that 10 second period, the photo would disappear forever. In an era where concerns about Facebook starting to store data and the early days of super targeted advertisement…
