Why you need to stop comparing Snap to Facebook

Shares took a nosedive and remain down by more than 20 percent at the week’s end. The Los Angeles-based company added 8 million new daily users during the quarter, which marks a year-over-year growth rate of 36 percent, but the company was adding new users at a rate of 52 percent one year ago. It ended the quarter with 166 million daily active users. “The way that we try to help people understand how we think about daily active user growth is really through the lens of creativity and creation, because we built our entire business on creation,” Spiegel said. “The industry needs to stop comparing Snapchat to Facebook and other social networks,” she says. “It’s not a ‘zero-sum game’ with social networks -- if one social network wins, it doesn’t mean that the others automatically lose.” Snapchat, like its counterparts in social media and messaging, offers a different value proposition and users fulfill different needs on different platforms, according to Liu. Snapchat’s user experience has changed following the introduction of stories, videos and other features, but it started as a messaging app for one-to-one or one-to-few communications, according to Liu. “Comparing Facebook’s broadcast-style functionality to Snapchat’s more private-style communication isn’t entirely fair at this point.” Snap addresses impact of copycatting by Facebook However, as Facebook continues its all-out assault on the company by copying the stories format pioneered by Snapchat, the comparisons will undoubtedly continue. When Google came along, everyone really felt like they needed a search strategy. When Facebook came along, everyone felt they needed a social strategy,” he said.