[doc_holliday]

I know that the Snapchat platform is worth something, it has high engagement and adoption of 18-24 year old age segment, and that is worth a lot in terms of attention and advertising $s.

However, this just feels completely out of proportion to earnings and downside does not seem priced in. Willing to be proved wrong of course, but especially seeing as they are non voting shares, I cannot understand this pricing.

[InternetUser]

And that's not their only product:

Bitmoji has been the #1 iPhone app overall since January 11, and it was already the #1 iPhone Utility app since July 22, 2016 (Log in to see) -

https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/app/bitmoji-keyboard-your-...

https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/top/united-states/overall/...

And yesterday on eBay, 22 pairs of Spectacles were sold, with one pair went for $229 and 2 others went for $200 each, even though http://www.spectacles.com has been offering them for $130 since last Monday -

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_from...

Then there is the rumored Android Snap Phone:

http://mashable.com/2017/02/14/snapchat-phone-concept-design...

And Snap Drones, as reported on page 2 of today's NYTimes -

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/technology/snapchat-drone...

http://i.imgur.com/6Nl0Ymq.jpg

[giarc]

Regarding the Spectacles. They only fetch those prices due to scarcity. If Snap made them available to a more wider audience, people wouldn't be buying them on eBay.

[lozaning]

They're now available for any member of the general public to go buy, no invite or celebrity status required.

[sushid]

Unless you're in NYC, you still have to wait 2-4 weeks for delivery. That might be why it's still selling for an ~$80 premium on eBay.

[moolcool]

Remember the phone made by HTC and Facebook? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First

[notadoc]

Or Amazon

[angryasian]

to me this all sounds like a company with little revenue and no focus and too much money that they are just trying everything to see what sticks to get them to bigger revenue

[1_2__3]

This is the correct answer.

[vadym909]

Trend moving from So(cial)-Lo(cal)-Mo(bile) to AI-AR-Dr(one)-SDR(self driving)

[InternetUser]

That is actually quite brilliant. Did you just make that up? I can't find it in Google.

[dingo_bat]

Can somebody explain this?

[tedmiston]

> And yesterday on eBay, 22 pairs of Spectacles were sold, with one pair went for $229 and 2 others went for $200 each...

Snapchat isn't making any additional money from the Spectacles resellers though.

[MorePowerToYou]

The point is Snap knows how to make things people want. Contrast with GearVRs or Oculus Rifts. They're not selling for above retail on eBay.

[tedmiston]

I don't think scarcity indicates anything more than a supply-demand imbalance. Some people buy products in this area just to resell even if they don't actually want it. It's tough to make an apples to apples comparison when one company artificially limited the early supply while the others didn't.

[sgnl]

"snap to try on" feature is, i feel, a huge hint on how they might monetize further with another company's product

[michaelbuckbee]

The hard part with these things is that in some ways progress and growth is non-linear. So Snap has (by all accounts) done a masterful job of launching their first hardware product:

https://www.spectacles.com/

How do you value that? I'm of the opinion that AR style glasses are the technology that will be the next tech wave post mobile phones (FB buying Oculus and Google pushing so much money on MagicLeap is explained for a similar reason).

So how do you consider Snap's Spectacles? Say there's a 10% chance that they become the initial dominant hardware player in the post-phone mobile space? What's that worth?

[idiot_stick]

>How do you value that?

It's a pair of glasses that stream video from a camera. I'm not saying it's not cool, but what is so crazy about it that it's hard to value?

>What's that worth?

If you're buying IPO shares and can't answer that question yourself, you're probably doing something wrong.

[michaelbuckbee]

To me, it's a thought experiment about where SnapChat will be a few years in the future.

Consider that they are pretty indisputably the leaders in terms of shipping real, actual working AR on mobile -> https://youtu.be/Pc2aJxnmzh0

So "how do you value" the number one AR company on the planet having shipped their first hardware device that:

- Has sidestepped all the "glasshole" baggage of Google Glass

- Genuinely nice looking non "borg" styling

- Actually works as intended

- Masterfully executed on a unique and successful marketing rollout. I completely agree on your point that it's a "pair of glasses that stream video from a camera", the important thing is that they've built a whole distribution and demand system where that is actually something people want in large numbers.

So, compared to MagicLeap, HoloLens, etc. SnapChat is working from a "worse is better" standpoint where their v1 is horrible on a feature vs feature basis against the Hololens (and presumably whatever MagicLeap is going to ship).

But, I feel pretty confident in thinking that they're selling many more units of their Spectacles (at $129) than Hololens (at $3,000) and they're learning at a much faster rate.

The question is: What will Spectacles v2-v5 look like? At what point do they not need a mobile phone? At what point can they make phone calls? At what point do they get gestural support (another area where Snapchat feels like a leader on mobile).

It's hard to look at an early click-wheel, monochrome screen iPod and see a mobile phone ecosystem worth trillions of dollars and I think it's far from certain that Spectacles are the equivalent, but I think there is a real chance that is the case.

[idiot_stick]

>So "how do you value"...

The same way you value anything. AR might be "new", but "new" things aren't new; they come out all the time, forever.

>It's hard to look at an early click-wheel, monochrome screen iPod and see a mobile phone ecosystem worth trillions of dollars

Which is why it would be incredibly naive to, in any way, predict Snapchat to have that sort of success, because it is so incredibly rare. It's like playing the lottery: yes there's a winner, but the odds of any individual company becoming "best ever" are incredibly slim. I have the same sentiment toward TSLA. I invest accordingly.

I think we are saying the same thing, I just lean cynical.

[jonknee]

No disrespect to Spectacles, but camera glasses have been around for years. It's not AR and it's not yet even material to Snap's business (according to Snap!).

[untog]

Right, but this goes back to the arguments everyone had about the iPod - MP3 players had been around for years, the iPod nailed the execution (eventually - the first version was not a success). Nor was it material to Apple's success, at the time.

The point is that proven execution is a good thing, because it implies you'll do it again.

[got2surf]

Great point. I know it's not the best comparison feature-wise, but look at the public reaction to Google Glass vs Snap Spectacles. Snap understands how to make the product sexy, not just tech-sexy. Snap understands how to make their innovation fit into the lifestyle of their users.

Anecdotally, it's been interesting to see GoPro take off over the years, spreading from "extreme sports pros" at the beginning to include more casual/recreational uses now. A lot of friends who wouldn't have considered buying a GoPro 5 years ago (because "they don't do anything exciting/dangerous enough to need it") are now considering GoPros to document the slightly more exciting parts of life. These same friends are even more strongly considering Spectacles, because Snap made a product that fits into their lifestyle (lowering the barrier of what is "interesting enough" to capture)

[jonknee]

That might not be the best comparison... GoPro is fighting for life and if it's not acquired by Snap it may not be long for this world.

[Apocryphon]

The company might not be doing well but their product is solid. If they don't figure it out, GoPro is going to be acquired by someone, that's for certain.

[fjdlwlv]

Glass cost 5x as much as Spectacles. It was trying to be way too much at once.

[elsewhen]

spectacles are record-only at the moment without any viewing for the wearer. adding user-viewing is at least one order of magnitude more difficult than the current device. is there any evidence that spectacles will be transitioned into AR?

[moolcool]

These cheap plastic glasses have the cultural staying power of the pet rock.

[DanBC]

> cultural staying power of the pet rock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock

>> Pet Rock is a collectible conceived in 1975

We're still talking about it forty years later. I knew exactly what you meant by pet rock without having to search for it.

[moolcool]

>by February 1976 they were discounted due to lower sales

[tln]

spectacles aren't AR... do you think they will move that way?

If snaps taken with spectacles ever make up more than a % or two of snaps, I will be surprised.

[empath75]

FOMO. And the market is really frothy in general right now.

[komali2]

For some reason whenever people use the word "frothy" to describe something, I gag slightly.

[knicholes]

Probably it's from the maturation clinic you took in school where they covered STIs. That and "cheesy."

[komali2]

Nah as a Wisconsite "cheesy" just describes the natural state of food for me ;P

[Stanleyc23]

for the majority of would-be shareholders is non-voting shares really that big of a problem, genuinely curious? Even if the votes:shares were 1:1 wouldn't you need a huge percentage (like > 10%) to be an influencer? If I as an 'average Joe' were to personally put down a comparatively minuscule $25k on SNAP would those votes count for much when push comes to shove?