[uniquelygeneric]

I suppose the argument is that Snapchat has the younger userbase that drifted away from Facebook once everyone and their mother hopped onto the FB bandwagon. With products like Discover, Snapchat is positioning itself as an advertising platform to go up against FB and Google to corner the "hard to find" millennials market.

That being said, I think Snapchat's current valuation is wildly overblown and that they are trying to cash out on an IPO before advertisers realize that the ROI isn't there. Snapchat already has some of the highest CPMs in the market, and their sponsored content is incredibly expensive. I think advertisers wanted to experiment with the platform, but I think the jury's still out if it's worth it. Regardless, if Snapchat can lock in a few high priced deals they can gain some momentum into an IPO, but once they go public, there's going to be much more scrutiny in their metrics. I suspect blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars to woo the fickle, ad-adverse millennial with a filter will ultimately prove ineffective.