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Snapchat trends for featuring Nairobi, CEO promises to focus on advertising
Using the application, users can take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list…
Using the application, users can take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of recipients. These sent photographs and videos are known as “Snaps”. Users set a time limit for how long recipients can view their Snaps (as of March 2015, the range is from 1 to 10 seconds), after which they will be hidden from the recipient’s device and deleted from Snapchat’s servers.
According to Snapchat in May 2014, the app’s users were sending 700 million photos and videos per day, while Snapchat Stories content was being viewed 500 million times per day. This is a substantial amount especially when the average amount of photos taken per day is 1 billion, meaning that half of all photos taken are from the Snapchat app. The company has a valuation of $10–$20 billion depending on multiple sources.
Now yesterday Snapchat chose to give Kenya some shine by featuring it with the story “Nairobi Life”; users in Nairobi were to share photos and videos on what they love most about Nairobi for the entire world to see. But that didn’t quit impress people around the world throwing shade at our Nairobi and its people. Here are some of the tweets:
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Thomas Satherley @tomsatherley: Seeing Nairobi on snapchat makes me sad. I want to go back so bad
inaas @InaasMug: YOU GO, guy featured on Nairobi’s snapchat saying “If you were expecting to see lions, giraffes prancing around us, not gonna happen”
Mandi Sarro @MissMandii:Somebody said they didn’t think we have internet in Nairobi. Thanks for the spotlight @snapchat. Enough with the stereotypes.
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Eli Mallahan @44birdman:USAOn the snapchat live stories how do people in Nairobi, Kenya (3rd world country) have: Cell phones, Service, Data, and Money for phones
Savannah Amber @_savannahamber: Not sure if snapchat is recording Nairobi live or Mogadishu live @Snapchat thanks for getting our flag wrong as well.
Masaku @masaku_:Just twitter search the Nairobi snapchat story. White people were expecting to see poor starving Africans living in the jungle.
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Elaine Nerea @mrsnerea: ION. Nairobi snapchat is crazy no ? These white fellas be dumb af. do you know your president is from KOGALLO ?
Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, Evan Spiegel, Snapchat CEO and co-founder has announced that after starting to run select video ads earlier this year, Snapchat is about to begin soliciting other big advertisers with some new numbers that assert its audience is bigger, younger, and more obsessive than anything on television.
In a 23-page sales pitch it’s sending to ad agencies this month, the company says more than 60 percent of 13- to 34-year-old smartphone users in the U.S. are active on the service and together view more than 2 billion videos a day. That’s already about half the number of videos people watch on Facebook, which is seven years older and has 10 times as many members.
Spiegel’s comments on stage at the Code tech conference in Southern California, also revealed that Snapchat has nearly 100 million daily active users in “developed markets” and that 65% of those users create content daily. For comparison’s sake, Facebook reported 936 million daily active users in its most recent earnings report.
In another sign of how engaged Snapchat’s audience is, Spiegel said internally the company tracks “hourly active users, but declined to reveal the metrics.
In 2013, Facebook had offered the founders of Snapchat $3 billion to purchase the platform but they declined.