{"id":746722,"date":"2013-04-16T09:13:07","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T13:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=631393"},"modified":"2013-04-16T09:13:07","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T13:13:07","slug":"snapchat-ceo-users-taking-150m-images-a-day-before-they-disappear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/746722","title":{"rendered":"Snapchat CEO: users taking 150M images a day (before they disappear)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even after Facebook released a direct copycat of its service, Snapchat is continuing to grow at breakneck speed. Tuesday CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel said Snapchat users are uploading 150 million images every day. That’s up from 20 million a day in October<\/a>, and compared to Instagram’s 40 million a day.<\/p>

The hallmark of Snapchat is, of course, the impermanence of its images: 10 seconds after an image is viewed by the recipient, it’s deleted from Snapchat’s servers, Spiegel said.<\/p>

Facebook released Poke in December<\/a>, a feature that mimics Snapchat’s disappearing images. It clearly didn’t have any kind of slowing effect on Snapchat becoming a major rival for image uploading. It was “the best Christmas present ever, I think,” Spiegel said Tuesday at the D: Dive into Mobile conference.<\/p>

The uptake of Snapchat’s take-it-and-delete-it photo service has come in only about a year. Though the company existed before January 2012, the service didn’t really start to take off until then, Spiegel said. It was after the 2011 holiday season when “people bought a lof of iPhone 4s” with a front-facing camera, which he said is crucial to to the service.<\/p>

The main demographic of the service is pretty much what you’d think: 13-year-olds to 25-year-olds, and not a lot of 30 to 40 year olds. The main thing most people are sending before they disappear? “Lotta selfies,” he said. And they’re not to random people, he said; they’re to people who are friends in real life.\u00a0Most users are snapping with iOS devices, though Spiegel predicts Android growth will come. Eighty percent of users are in the U.S.<\/p>

But the unifying characteristic of users is their belief in the importance of ephemerality in social media, something Spiegel shares: “I don’t use Facebook. I’m a big Snapchatter … I posted my first Tweet a couple days ago.” He said they’re not “totally ruling out” permanence, but it’s not something they’re focused on right now, he said.\u00a0”We’re not anti-permanence, but we believe ephemeral should be the default.”<\/p>
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