Ryan Hoover shared:
Snapchat, You’ve Made a Huge Mistake

It makes sense in the context of highschoolers using Snapchat, and also as a method of discoverability within the social graph. It's sort of like Facebook listing all your friends on your profile. But I think the leaderboard aspect of it is sort of annoying.

I ran through this exact scenario last night with a friend. Downloaded the update, tapped on my friend's name, and noticed his best friends were (a) his current girlfriend whom he's planning to break up with and (b) the new girl he's interested in seeing.

Immediately sent him a text to let him know.

It's really interesting and, I agree, a break of confidentiality for Snapchat to show my best friends and let me see others'. I've had one friend tell me this already existed pre-5.0.0 but was buried in the menus. Any ideas if that's true?

It's funny that he just found out about the personal page. It's been out there forever and it's the best way to share your handle. Teens already knew about it for sure.

I really love the modestly successful app Rando. Rando users take a photo and it gets sent to someone. somewhere. You have no idea who. In return you get a random photo too, with no attribution or explanation. There is no feedback, no comments, no likes, no profiles, etc. This isn't about privacy, its about removing the barriers to creating and sharing. I take Rando photos all the time because it is fun, interesting, and no pressure. Taking a photo with Rando is communication as a gesture.

I think we are probably misreading the real allure of SnapChat. The professional tech community has decided teens love SnapChat because it is private, but I'm skeptical. Instead, I think the ephemeral is valuable because it creates a more spontaneous and natural interaction. That's how I see it used by young users (and I see it because they're excited to share).

The objections in this post seems odd. Now someone may find out that you're cheating on them?

Keep in mind: high schools all go to school together. Everyday. As I recall, when someone cheated on someone else, it was never much of a secret, and certainly not for long. Frequently it was instead broadcasted, with a certain pride, as part of a signaling game that was pretty direct and transparent and part of every interaction, down to who you sat with at lunch. This is the very grist of high school socializing itself.

Viewed in this light, this feature is sort of brilliant, and demonstrates the founders are acutely aware of what makes SnapChat tick. Thinking back, there is nothing my friends in high would have found more exciting and intriguing than indirectly broadcasting their relations with a variety of people.

This post is an excellent example of the tech community's inability to contextualize product outside of it's own world view. I mean, really - exposing "extramarital affairs" is a problem for SnapChat? This argument defeats itself.

I'd agree with everyone that the leaderboard is a poor addition, lazy gamification in the wrong context.

Also agree with Michael Mayernick re: overrating the privacy attraction. Snapchat is popular because the barrier to sharing is ultra low. It's 1:1, there isn't any content syndication (no chance of your 500 Facebook friends getting shared on a photo), and although you can (crudely) edit photos, there isn't any implicit pressure (stemming from the toolset) to be artistic (unlike Instagram and its filters). Also being 1:1 the core of the app is a highly personal gesture, receiving a snapchat is like getting a present from someone close to you (Snapchat knows this, that's why photos are represented as gift boxes in-app).

And yes, Rando is a very fun app. Adrian Crook, Karl Schmidt and l actually put together a similar concept for Facebook World Hack last year :)

Some great points in this thread. If I had to isolate a single motivation behind the feature, I think its that they're looking to exploit insecurity. Which is a bit more nuanced that plain old "gamification".

They're essentially creating a virtual "popularity contest" in ways other apps do but in maybe less explicit ways. Instagram is a decent example. If you go to the Favorites tab, and then click on the "Following" option on the top, you can spy on who is liking what pics in real-time. The ability to click into a tweet and quickly see who has favorited or retweeted it does the same. Whether users will admit it or not, that makes them feel a certain way about how those same people are interacting (favorite/like/etc) their own content, tempting them to assess how they "rank". At an even higher level, the follower counts on both of those platforms serves as a similar proxy for popularity. But in many of these cases you have to dig/click to find it. Snapchat is putting it much more front and center.

It feels like a rather cheap way to drive engagement that I'm not a fan of, but I would guess the move pays off given that they're targeting it at an already insecure demographic who will likely be more susceptible to it.

This has to be one of the biggest leaks of personal information in a vulnerable demographic that I have seen in a long time. People can gain information about you by your friends for sure. Ranking them and tracking the rankings over time can provide a lot more data. Just looking at the rankings at the moment can cause angst. What do you mean you snapchat with them more than me? You are my top, ...

The data scientist in me wonders how well connected their user graph is based on just the top few users.

This was introduced to me as a privacy based sharing system. Between questions about how easy it is to capture the snapchats to what information is shared, I definitely have concerns.

On the flip side, I would have loved to share moments with my friends when I was a kid. Kids these days have grown up in more of a open and published environment. Makes me wonder how well they will manage the information out there and how well our social mores will adapt to the fact that the information is out there and is getting easier and easier to find.

Cheers,
Jacob

Rationale, not rational.

And it's not certain that they had one. They may have just done this without thinking through the ramifications.