Why is Snapchat More Popular than Instagram Now
Why is Snapchat More Popular than Instagram Now The modern generation, especially young individuals, prefer using social networks for sharing and exchanging their thoughts and ideas. The recent trend among such people is the exchange of photographs via online services. Snapchat and Instagram are online photo-sharing networks, which serve to fulfill this purpose. Instagram was first launched on 6 October 2010 by Systrom, who from the childhood, created programs aimed at sharing instant messages, which surprised his friends. Systrom together with his co-founder, Krieger, worked on the development of Instagram and its visual design for approximately eight weeks. Snapchat as an app for messaging images was created by Evan Spiegel and his co-founders, who were students of Stanford University. With its introduction, the Snapchat Company has generated a new way of sharing online messages, which disappear seconds after they are read. An analysis of the study shows that although Snapchat and Instagram resemble each other by serving as image and multimedia services, both of them have a number of differences, including the focus of services, social pressure, easiness of using, as well as the level of popularity. Snapchat is more popular than Instagram at the present time.
In 2010, Instagram first appeared as an online photo sharing social service. For its creation, Systrom invited his friend Mike Krieger, who also graduated from Stanford graduate and is two years younger than Systrom. At that time, Krieger also worked on the development a chat platform known as Meebo. However, Burbn (later Instagram) appeared to be much more appealing than his app. At first, the application suited only for the iPhone. At the time of Instagram release, the iPhone 4 was introduced to the public as a device with a high-quality built-in camera suitable for the creation of instant telegrams, from which the name Instagram derived. The introduction of a new online networking service attracted up to 25 000 persons who created an account in Instagram during first day of its release. Within nine months, the app had approximately seven million users. The appealing feature of the app was that it provided its users with the opportunity to make their photos unique and present it according to their preferences, either with rounded or squared edges, dark or bright colors, as well as large or small profile pictures. After two years of its launching, Facebook had announced its aim to purchase the start-up company. In November 2012, the service added a new component that allowed the users viewing their photographs on a web browser. It means that people could access the service not only through mobile devices but also computers. Later, Instagram added more filters which made it easier for individuals to exchange photos within the Instagram application. Hence, Instagram is a popular online network, which offers its users a variety of choices and opportunities that fit their preferences.
Snapchat, as an online photo sharing network, first appeared in 2011. Hence, it has more than 100 million active users and approximately seven billion of daily video views. Nearly 45% of the service users are under the age of 25. By 2014, almost 40% of all American individuals who were eighteen years old used the app on a daily basis. Snapchat’s chief executive officer and co-founder is Evan Spiegel, who is now the head of the fastest-growing online social network. In 2015, he was the head of a startup company with 330 workers. The users can access the application only via smartphones while the shared photos and video take up its entire screen. In 2013, the company updated the platform by including such feature as Stories, which provided users with the opportunity to create a long narration of their snaps. Such a story lasts one day after being posted and is public to all its followers. In 2015, Snapchat added another feature called Discover that provided tits subscribers with the opportunity to receive the publications of media companies, including ESPN, National Geographic, and Vice. These features contributed to raising the level of the popularity of Snapchat among youngsters.
Snapchat and Instagram are similar as both of them serve as image and multimedia services. Two platforms have a similar purpose of distributing and sharing photographs and videos. However, despite this resemblance, Snapchat and Instagram have a number of differences. The first distinction is the main focus of services. Instagram focuses more on its content rather than social interactions between individuals while Snapchat focuses on the immediate sharing the content created by users. The second difference lies in the fact that Snapchat has no social pressure by requiring subscribers to post comments and likes. Unlike this app, Instagram, which is a part of Facebook, allows commenting the shared photo. The third difference is that Snapchat is easy and quick to use while Instagram requires completing lengthy processes. To publish an image on Snapchat, a user needs to open it, take a photo, and add it to his or her story. In other words, those teenagers do not have to worry about trying to look perfect at their photographs, about editing, or how many likes from their followers they have. In constant, Instagram is a collection of those images and videos, which they want to showcase other individuals for a long time. In Instagram, a person should at first take several photos, then pick the one with the highest quality, use a filter to make it similar to other photos and finally, add it to his or her profile. As a result, Instagram uses care about getting responses. These features make both online services differ from one another.
Another aspect that makes Snapchat and Instagram be different from each other is the level of popularity. According to the article titled “Is Snapchat Slowly Killing Instagram,” young individuals who are from thirteen to nineteen years old choose Snapchat as their favorite social platform. Approximately one third of teenagers consider Snapchat be the most appealing online media service. According to the results of the semi-annual study of 6 350 American teenagers who were around seventeen years old, nearly 28% of all participants states that Snapchat is an important social networking site. Approximately 27% out of that number considered Instagram to be the most significant social media application for youngsters. Despite the fact that the percentage of participants is nearly the same for both social networks, it is expected that teenagers would vote more for Snapchat in the next studies. In the previous survey, 33% of the young members, who were enrolled in the study, chose Instagram as an important social network while only 19% voted for Snapchat. The evidence proves that although in the study of 2016, the difference constitutes only 1%, the percentage of Instagram followers has fallen by 6% while that of Snapchat has grown by 9% since the previous investigation, which was conducted in 2015. The results show that Snapchat is more popular among youngsters than Instagram is.
The evidence proves the fact that Snapchat is more popular than Instagram. According to Brooker, Snapchat focuses on attracting the attention of teenagers and, thus, continuously adds new features to turn the serve into the most practical and convenient for them. Snapchat captures by proving the users with the opportunity to publish raw and unedited images that make them unique. Although Instagram has also altered its algorithm by adding multimedia applications, most youngsters prefer watching videos on Youtube. Despite the fact that Snapchat partially copies other chat application, including chat 2.0, it still offers much more to its users than Instagram does. The main aspect that makes Snapchat to be an appealing online network is that it gives people the opportunity to be real and behave like real individuals while Instagram attempts to turn them into perfect humans. Snapchat aims at digital natives, which means that the service attracts the representatives of the mobile generation. Overall, Snapchat has a higher level of popularity than Instagram because it offers an authentic way to communicate with friends. As a result, it an important social network in the lives of those teenagers who are from fourteen to nineteen years old. The evidence shows why Snapchat attracts youngsters and is popular among then.
In conclusion, taking into consideration the findings of the study, Snapchat is more popular than Instagram. Despite the fact that both online social networks are image and multimedia services, they differ from each other. Such aspects as including the focus of services, social pressure, the process of usage, and the rate of popularity show why Snapchat is an appealing application to teenagers.
