A couple of days ago, Kylie Jenner, the lip line magnate from the Kardashian-Jenner clan, tweeted out her disappointment and boredom with Snapchat, causing the stock market share price of Snap Inc. to crash in value by $1 billion dollars.
Wow! That’s the influence of Kylie Jenner, who’s fame and effervescent use of Snapchat helped to make it into the very popular social media app that it is today. However, her current boredom with the app has also caused it to drop in serious value, which also highlights its waning popularity. The total loss in share price amassed to $1.3 billion dollars yesterday, following on from Kylie’s tweet on Wednesday.
sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me… ugh this is so sad.
— Kylie Jenner ()
The recent redesign of the app didn’t sit well with its users, which prompted Snapchat to back track on the update and bring back the older design. This confusion has caused investors to grow fearful of the app’s overall usability and growth issues going forward.
The redesign of the app saw Snapchat steer away from its previous split between messages and stories (which had basically been copied by Instagram in their story mode), whilst it now focused attention on the division between friends and publishers, allowing it to easily promote paid content and grouping it up with actual acquaintances all in one place.
Kylie Jenner (pictured) recently had a baby. Credit: Billboard
Celebrity users and investors had expressed frustration with the new direction of the app, prompting 1.2 million users to sign a petition to bring back the older design, which was met with this response from Snap Inc:
“We completely understand the new Snapchat has felt uncomfortable for many. This new foundation is just the beginning, and we will always listen closely to find new ways to make the service better for everyone”.
The petitions main complaint is that the new update “has not made the app easier to use”, but it has actually made the old and new features even more difficult to operate. “Many new features are useless or defeat the original purposes Snapchat has had for the past years”.
Co-founder and Chief Executive of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel, promised that the redesign would satisfy concerns of the investors that Snapchat was now too difficult to use. Spiegel said in November, “For a very long time, we have been trying to clarify, or at least distinguish, the difference between friends and publishers”.
Evan Spiegel (pictured), the CEO of Snap Inc. Credit: Business Insider Singapore
“Like, on the Stories page, do you show friends or publishers first? Because our service was really built on this idea of helping friends communicate, we chose friends – and ultimately what that meant is that all of this awesome publisher content was all the way down at the bottom”.
Despite the criticism, Evan Spiegel remains upbeat about new look, stating at a press conference in San Francisco that “some of the complaints we’re seeing reinforce the philosophy.”
“One of the complaints we got was, ‘wow I used to feel like this celebrity was my friend and now they don’t feel like my friend anymore’. And we’re like: ‘Exactly. They’re not your friend.’ So for us, even some of the frustrations we’re seeing really validate those changes. And it’ll take time for people to adjust”.
Does this mean Snapchat will not revert to the older design? This remains unclear. Are we starting to see the commencement of the death of Snapchat?
One could definitely believe that the app is in trouble after such a big financial loss due to Kylie Jenner’s tweet on Wednesday.
What’s your view on the new design, and should Snapchat just go back to the older design, if it’s at all possible? Please tell us your thoughts in the comments section down below.
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Featured Photo Credit: Marketing Land