Chances are, you aren’t a huge fan of the new Snapchat update. There aren’t too many people out there who are. Well, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, doesn’t want to hear it as he says the new update is here to stay.
Speaking at Goldman Sach’s Internet and Technology conference in San Francisco on Thursday Siegel, via Mashable, said that the update “will take time for people to adjust […] We’re excited about what we’re seeing so far. The best part is that even some of the complaints we’re seeing reinforce the philosophy [behind the design].
For example, one of the complaints we got was ‘Aww…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.’”
To be fair, that was never the complaint I, or anybody who I actually know or can think of, had. Give us a valid reason for why people’s stories are in the same section as the chat instead of the right feed now — resulting in people I’ve never even talked to once being at the top of my home page — and then we’ll talk.
The new Snapchat update is like going from Obama to Trump
— McLovin? (@playboiwes) February 8, 2018
Still, Evan Spiegel is doubling down, saying the changes the company has been aiming for are indeed being seen through to satisfactory results with this new update.
“The tech is an important piece but I think the harder part you can’t get around is the time it takes to learn,” he said via Tech Crunch. “You do need folks to use the product, to communicate with their friends to learn how to better provide that feed. The tech to some degree is a solved problem, the time to learn is a hard problem to solve. […] It’ll take time for people to adjust — but for me, using it for a couple months, I feel way more attached to the service.”
While the changes to Snapchat are frustrating, the company has been seeing growing competition from other social media apps — Facebook and Instagram stories. Basically, they had to do something to stay relevant….we just wish they hadn’t done this. In fact, the backlash has been so strong that a petition on change.org now has over 1 million signatures requesting that they reverse the update.
The new Snapchat update is more complicated than trying to turn on your friends shower.
— Amber Frank (@ItsAmberFrank) February 7, 2018
Snapchat, however, beat some fourth-quarter earning earlier this month. Evan Spiegel also said that the company will continue to grow and change over time.
“The thing that drives the business is fundamentally the engagement around the products,” Spiegel said. “That needs to be there first. Even at the time full-screen vertical video ads, no one will make those, what we’ve seen is the value delivered by getting the fundamentals right will drive the business. There’s creation, people making snaps, there’s communication which drives the frequencies of use — something people don’t realize, we monetize across all three behaviors.”
Sure Spiegel, sure. Buckle in everyone, looks like we’re in this update for the long-haul.
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