In a classic coming-of-age tale, everyone?s favorite disappearing photo company has matured beyond its application roots and outgrown the ?chat? in its name.
Snapchat now refers exclusively to the popular photo-sharing app that revolutionized the selfie, and it only represents one arm of the newly minted Snap Inc., a ?camera company.?
The sleeker name is meant to reflect the company?s evolution beyond social, citing the release of Spectacles as its entry into hardware.
In a time when fewer and fewer platforms are identifying as ?social,? Snap Inc.?s expansion represents its progression into something bigger. CEO Evan Spiegel is no longer simply dominating the messaging app scene; he is building a new ecosystem.
Snapchat has been one to watch since 2013, when then-23-year-old Spiegel turned down a $3 billion offer from Facebook for his fledgling photo messaging app. Three years later, the app boasts 150 million daily users who send more than 1 billion snaps and view over 10 billion videos daily. In any given day, Snapchat reaches 41 percent of all 18- through 34-year-olds in the U.S. To put that into perspective, the average top 15 television networks reach only 6 percent of that same demographic.
With such impressive engagement rates, transitioning into product development is a logical next step for the company. As an app, Snapchat is bound by the cameras available in smartphones and boxed into a fixed user experience. The only way to avoid being a one-hit-wonder app is...