Executive Report (Snapchat)
Our platform biography discussed specifically the history, audience, affordances, etc. of Snapchat as a digital media. From our five-person group we generated a lot of research on our platform to answer the basic and complex questions that surround Snapchat’s organization. My main focus was on the history of the platform and how it has developed over time and changed the digital media world itself. The interconnectedness of Snapchat with other social media platforms is interesting to visualize and research. Starting from the beginning and working until the present our research was intriguing and led to great results. Here is a look at the direct research and conclusions that I drew from our groups research:
Snapchat was created in 2011, when three Stanford University students developed a rather inappropriate application that was designed for humans to send revealing photos back and forth that would be deleted once they were opened. This scandalous idea revealed the brilliance behind a communication channel of photos that would be deleted after being viewed. Thus, Snapchat was born, and the ratings of the platform have been soaring ever since. This type of scandalous and risky attitude connected quite well with younger generations and attracted their loyalty to the platform that has paid dividends for the social media site. Although the platform has numerous affordances, the main feature of two-way communication by photographs was the simplest yet revolutionary idea that makes Snapchat so popular. Obviously, people have been sending photos digitally for years, but an application that is driven by this exclusive feature was brilliant and connected with so many users. This affordance also correlates to some of the problem associated with the platform. Due to the instant communication that disappears, the app has created gateway for online bullying and inappropriate behavior that Snapchat cannot control. The research indicates a fascinating platform that has a lot of upside, but with everything comes some sort of bias or problems along the way. It will be neat to follow Snapchat’s movements in the future and see how the platform continues to develop.
It is interesting to research about Snapchat because personally I have been a user since the very beginning. I remember when each affordance was first introduced and implemented into the platform, and it is interesting to see how over the course of almost 10 years Snapchat has grown and become an integral part of the social media world. I personally believe that the group chat or group snap was my favorite function that developed over time and I still utilize that function to this day. Socially this app has been incredible for connecting with people in different states. I have three group snaps that I use every day, one is with my best friends from home that are scattered across the U.S., another with my cousins that are also scattered across the U.S., and finally my friends from Xavier that I will be moving away from at the end of this school year. This form of rapid communication is ingenious and will always have a place in the world we live in today because of our increasingly need for speed, acceptance, and popularity, which is why Snapchat has created a shift in the way we communicate in an incredible way.
