Currently Snapchat is one of the most popular social media applications to exist. It is hard to believe when the idea of Snapchat was initially pitched it was ridiculed and said by everyone that it would be a failure. So what is the real story behind Snapchat?
For this we need to go back to 2011 to Stanford university; this is where it all began. According to sources the story goes that Reggie Brown came to Evan Spiegel with an idea for an application that he thought would be amazing and blow up immediately. The idea was to make an application where people could send each other pictures and post them and that these would disappear in a little while. Spiegel was immediately intrigued and decided to pursue the idea with Brown and together they approached Bobby Murphy who had experience in coding and thus the two thought would help them actually design the application. Bobby immediately came on board since he saw potential in the idea as well. The three set to work with Bobby working on the coding and Spiegel and Brown handling the branding of the application. This is when Brown decided on the name Picaboo and designed the ghost logo which Snapchat is famous for today.
However, things did not stay as sweet as they were in the beginning and took a turn for the worst soon after the trio launched Picaboo. Almost as soon as Picaboo came out it was taken off the market. This was happening simultaneously to Spiegel and Murphy teaming up and deciding to leave Brown behind on the new venture they were going to start. This was what birthed Snapchat. While Brown was still in the dark about the fact that he had been left behind and persistently tried to talk to the two and asked them to renegotiate his cut with him but the two claimed that Snapchat was their own thing and that Reggie had nothing to do with it. And like with most disputes like this one, Reggie took this to the court and filed a law suit against Spiegel and Murphy saying that they had cheated him out of the deal and used his idea. And true to his statement, the deal was settled out of court and Reggie walked away with a huge monetary compensation as well as the condition that he would be identified as one of the original founders of Snapchat.
After this entire legal debacle died down and the media frenzy along with it, the duo decided now they could put all of their concentration on Snapchat. And pay attention to Snapchat they did since their hard work and dedication as well as they dedication of the entire team at Snapchat has now made it into one of the leading social media applications in the world.
Snapchat was released in 2011 for download on smartphones and thus you can imagine that there has been a generation of people who have grown up with Snapchat. And it is no secret that Snapchat is especially popular amongst the millennial age group. This is because this generation grew up with smartphones and downloading applications on their phone and hence grabbed on to Snapchat immediately. Snapchat has always prided itself on how well they cater to user experience and true to their word they have been putting out great updates to their application.
Initially when Snapchat was launched it had limited capabilities because the phones it was operating on had limits and thus the people at Snapchat could not really do much but wait for technology to advance and once it did, we saw the full potential of Snapchat. From the initial days of Snapchat when all you could do was take pictures and draw on them with the pen tool to today when you can make your own stickers on Snapchat using the scissor tool and what not!
Snapchat has truly come a long way and there should be no surprise why this application is so popular. According to the last official statistics the application had over 166 million daily active users. This is not even the number of people registered on Snapchat but the people who use it every day. This is an amazing number if you look at it considering a lot of countries around the world have lesser populations than Snapchat has daily active users.
We also need to focus on how well Snapchat is doing because of the fact how it changes the narrative of today’s world. We are now increasingly seeing this trend where people enjoy the world and their experiences in this world through their phone lens. But Evan Spiegel from Snapchat has a different take on this. According to him this generation and everyone who uses the internet is afraid of the fact that whatever they post online will remain there forever. Hence there is a big need to post things which look aesthetically pleasing and constantly worrying about pictures people have posted of you that came out bad; he argues that with Snapchat, people no longer fear this fear of perfectionism. This is because on Snapchat, you do not have to worry about the image staying up forever when you know that it will expire after a little while. You let go of your inhibitions and thus can relax and let people post whatever they want of you on Snapchat since you can take solace in the fact that it will disappear soon.
When the question of screenshots comes well Snapchat has done their very best to combat this issue because they know it goes against what they are trying to achieve as an application. While taking screenshots is not impossible on Snapchat at all, the person whose picture or video you screenshot will be immediately alerted about what you are doing and thus it might put the other person in a very awkward position.
Some of the features Snapchat initially had have been enhanced. Initially everyone could see everyone’s best friends on Snapchat. Best friends on Snapchat are people who you send the most number of snaps to and interact with the most on the application. Now you cannot see other peoples best friends but you can sure as hell see your own. When you go to your contact list on Snapchat, you get to see who your best friends on Snapchat are.
We have made a cheat sheet so you can know what emoji depicts who your best friends on Snapchat are.
BEST FRIEND EMOJIS
- Yellow heart – this appears next to your number 1 best friend who you send the most snaps to.
- Red heart – this appears next to the person who has been your Snap best friend for a minimum of 2 weeks!
- Double pink hearts – these pink hearts appear with the user who has been your best friend for two months straight.
- Smiling – this person is in your best friend list because you interact with them quite a bit on Snapchat.
- Sunglasses – this is for when you have a best friend in common with someone.
- Grimace – you and this person have the same best friend in common and not only that but you interact with this person the most on Snapchat as well.
- Smirk – this emoji appears with those people who have you in their best friends but you do not have them in your best friends list.
If you have any of these emojis next to someone’s name on Snapchat you will have figured out who your best friends on Snapchat are. To some people knowing who their best friends on Snapchat are is very important while other people could care less.
So chances when you know who your best friends on Snapchat are you have probably ended up in that spot because of the fact that you snap them a lot. So there are a few things you need to keep in mind in order to ensure that you keep these people in your list of best friends. You need to ensure you snap them constantly and preferably do it once every 24 hours. Keep a look out for any of the emojis we have mentioned below to know that you are not in trouble.
SNAPSTREAK EMOJIS
- Fire – this usually appears next to a number and thus represents you Snap streak which basically is the number of days you and the other person have exchanged snaps with one another.
- 100 – if you are legend and have kept up your snapstreak for a 100 days this emoji appears with your snapstreak.
- Hourglass – This is usually a panic inducing emoji which warns you to quickly send a snap before the snap streak expires.
Make sure you know what all these emojis mean so that your best friends on Snapchat do not suffer because of the fact you had no idea what an hourglass emoji next to their name meant and thus you break a long snapstreak you held with them.
Cybil 
Michelle