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Re:Evan Spiegel Reveals Plan to Turn Snapchat into a Real Bu... by boling11 on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @03:33PM (#9607099)
I dunno man... Facebook (and Instagram), Twitter, Linkedin all seem to be doing alright with that plan.
Re:Evan Spiegel Reveals Plan to Turn Snapchat into a Real Bu... by paulhauggis on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @03:54PM (#9607226)
I will go down the list:

Demographics:

Facebook: Everybody (my parents are on Facebook) Instagram: Same as above Twitter: Professionals, businesses, everybody Linkedin: Professionals of all ages. They also make money through recruiters and anyone else interested potential employees

Here is a breakdown: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/demographics-of-key-so...

Teenagers and Students mostly use snapchat. Unless they can break out of this demographic (which all of the above were able to do), they will have a very difficult time making money.

Chat is historically very difficult to monetize. I'm not sure if you are old enough to remember ICQ messenger. It was the #1 app download on Cnet and I think they hit 1 billion downloads. Since they never had a business plan in the beginning, they scrambled to come up with a way to make money like charging for a pro account and some advertising.

It eventually limped along until AOL purchased it in 2001: http://news.cnet.com/AOL-acquires-instant-message-firm/2100-...

That is a way for Snapchat to make money: getting purchased by a bigger company that will use it as part of their eco-system.