As a millennial who has been using Snapchat since it came out in 2012, I can honestly say I have never seen a bigger train wreck than the update that just came out a few days ago.
With every application comes updates, layout changes, new features, etc. But with the new update from Snapchat, I feel as if they have redesigned the content completely and I feel like I’m not using Snapchat anymore.
It has been in the news for sometime now that Snapchat has been falling below it’s IPO price that went public at $17 per share and has now been juggling between $13-$14.
On February 7, 2018, something miraculous happened for Snapchat. Their stock went up to $20.57, about a 48 percent increase…that’s HUGE.
Sure Snapchats stock went up, but did this put them at jeopardy to losing a large percentage of their users? As of 2017, Snapchat had 178 million daily users which averaged about 3 billion Snapchats being sent out everyday. After reading comments from the media, it is clear that Snapchat has already begun to lose their users.
Snapchat is the most popular digital camera application to millennials and the generation-Z in today’s world, but after the recent update, I’m afraid this is going to be the downfall of that reputation. All over social media, I have seen countless complaints and even comments such as “Well, Snapchat is ruined. Guess it’s time to go back to Facebook!”
What I found most shocking was this conversation below that a Twitter user had with the Snapchat Twitter account asking how many re-tweets it would take to bring back the old Snapchat. Although the response from Snapchat didn’t say they would change the layout, they still requested to get 50,000 re-tweets… this tweet went VIRAL. It is currently at 1.4 million re-tweets. If this isn’t a message for Snapchat, I don’t know what is.
It makes sense that Snapchat made a move that would benefit them financially, but I wish that didn’t require changing the entire layout of Snapchat that everyone knew and loved. Users loved how it looked before. It was easy to navigate, personal snaps and snap stories were separated, and the discover page was easily accessible. The format now is confusing, the snaps are out of order, and it seems almost impossible to find what you are looking for.
Snapchat has obviously felt the backlash and negativity of their new update, so what will they do now? Is the money increase worth losing your loyal users and possibly risking flushing the entire company down the toilet? I guess we will have to stay tuned and see.
Madison Avenue 
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