[nstart]

Snapchat. Thought it was a pretty dumb idea till recently. I'm now an active user. To be fair though, I still think the messaging feature of it is fun only as the occasional gimmick. The value tapers off as soon as you pass a certain age (at least that's what I feel). But when they introduced stories, and "live stories" in particular, their value just skyrocketed. It suddenly became genius. Being able to follow a full day of Red Bull's highlights, experiencing a country or city from multiple viewpoints in the span of a couple of minutes was amazing. Watching UFC from the front, back stage, way at the back of the ring, seeing the reactions of people in a curated-ish form that lasted 5 minutes was incredible. Snapchat suddenly became a whole lot more valuable for me.

One other idea. Yo. I don't think anyone's really using it to its potential. Apart from the "Yo" feature, the idea of it as a notification broker is fantastic. I still carry bets that it won't hit "critical mass/momentum" in its current form. Way too clunky.

[Noctem]

Came here to say roughly the same thing about Snapchat. I didn't expect it to rise very far above a niche sexting app, and I was surprised when I started seeing a lot of people using it for more innocent purposes.

The concept still doesn't appeal to me as much as a lot of people (though I still use it), but I was clearly wrong about its potential for mass appeal.

[nmela]

Im with you on the Snapchat development. Once many people got on there they leveraged it in really cool ways. It's very interesting how they turned an app which people used for nudes and what not into one that advertisers now pay toooons of money to certain content creators.

[avinoth]

I still think Snapchat is a dumb idea. Maybe well executed? I tried myself to start using it, but everytime I install it, I'll uninstall after few minutes..