Daily Beast looks inside Snapchat data and culture: It’s not pretty

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Daily Beast writer Taylor Lorenz disclosed never-reported information about the culture of secrecy permeating Snap Inc. and the data regarding key features of its flagship app, Snapchat. Among the revelations:

  • “The company operates in secret “need to know”-type bubbles, where many in sales, content, or non-engineering roles feel kept in the dark.”
  • Employees routinely find out about Snap products and services in the news.
  • “The company has become so privacy-obsessed it blocks access to its own app at parties and events. At Snapchat’s NYC holiday party at the Beekman Hotel and its massive, $4 million New Year’s Eve blowout in Los Angeles, employees and guests had the cameras on their phones taped over.”
  • A review of Daily Active User (DAU) metrics by Daily Beast shows Snapchat has not bridged the gap to becoming a “social network,” and instead is more of a “chat app.”
  • Despite hype, the Snap Maps feature has weak DAU numbers.

New Snapchat design meeting resistance

In other recent Snapchat news, the much-anticipated redesign is falling flat among test users. According to TechCrunch, more than 80 percent of early users:  “In the few countries including the U.K., Australia, and Canada where the redesign is widely available, 83 percent of App Store reviews (1,941) for the update are negative with one or two stars, according to data provided to TechCrunch by mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower. Just 17 percent, or 391 of the reviews, give it three to five stars.”

The new design mixes Stories, where Snapchat shows ads but is slow growing compared competing Instagram Stories, into the messaging inbox.