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Back to What comes after smartphones, with Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, with Evan Spiegel.

Why Did Snapchat Separate Social From Media?

Evan Spiegel says Snapchat had to separate social from media because combining them was the biggest mistake, and the mix creates perverse incentives. People should add the friends who are close, use the service for messaging, and share stories with them when they want to. Content to watch can come from publishers and creators instead.

He puts that decision around 2016 or 2017. Very early, Snapchat opened to publisher content and content from creators, so people could watch that once they ran out of posts from close friends, rather than being pushed to add more friends. Snapchat moderated that content and was one of the first companies to rank it with AI, in a service called Discover.

The people someone wants to interact with, and having something to do in the service, are separate concerns. Close friends stay for messaging and stories. Publishers and creators cover the rest, so nobody has to add friends just to keep watching.

Grokipedia·Snapchat·Evan Spiegel

Transcript

What comes after smartphones, with Snap CEO Evan Spiegel ·

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