The Spectacle Of Snapchat
Snapchat has come a long way to become the spectacle it is today. As the oldest brother of four I still remember when Snapchat was known exclusively by only my youngest brother, still in high school at the time.
Snapchat has come a long way to become the spectacle it is today. As the oldest brother of four I still remember when Snapchat was known exclusively by my youngest brother who was still in high school at the time.
Snapchat in Times Square.
When Facebook offered Snapchat $3 Billion to be acquired founder and CEO Evan Spiegel surprisingly declined the offer. Overnight the company was a household name.
From there the growth continued. I watched from New York as they secured offices in the old New York Times building, one floor below where I was working at the time. A few months later most of the Times Square billboards were taken over by iconic white ghosts on yellow backdrops.
Around this time I started using Snapchat on a daily basis and so did a lot more people. Brands started to take notice. Snapchat started selling ads for more money then YouTube was charging for its famous homepage banner ad.
The company kept iterating on its mobile first platform without adding unnecessary distractive features. Like all great companies they made complex things feel simple. Adding augmented reality as face filters, gamification through badges, publicly accessible geotagging called geo-filters, QR codes rebranded as snapcodes and more.
After fundraising millions and rebranding as Snap Inc they are now doubling down on their new mission to be a camera company. Their first hardware product, Spectacles, is slowly being released around the country by a surprisingly cool popup vending machine called "Snapbot". One of which just showed up in New York City!
For me Snapchat has replaced Facebook as the way I stay in touch with friends and family. If you don't currently have some Snapchat streaks with your friends and family or know what they are I suggest you start some today. They are fun and effective for making sure you communicate with people each day.
And recently the company has filed for an IPO. I have to say Snapchat, or Snap Inc. as it is now called, has become a company I am very fond of. They have come a long way from "that app where your photos delete themselves after 10 seconds". Snapchat has stayed true to the mission of making a great product that helps people connect. I am excited to see the company IPO and watch what they do next.
Epilogue: If you want to check out my Snapchat adventures around New York City and the rest of the world you can add me by clicking here!
The Future Is Empathy
Merriam Webster simply defines Empathy as: "the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else's feelings".
Merriam Webster simply defines Empathy as:
"the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else's feelings"
Empathy requires a deeper level of realism than sympathy. It requires the ability to look from another persons perspective, not to it from your own perspective.
Monday of this week started with honoring Dr. Marin Luther King Jr. and his dream. Dr King was able to lead during his lifetime because he had a deep empathy for the other people in this world going through similar struggles. The greatest leaders of our time use empathy to gain followers and with those followers collectively solve large problems.
Today Macklemore and Ryan Lewis released a new song about the role white privilege has played in their life. The song chronicles Macklemore's recent experiences marching in Black Lives Matter protests and being a part of the hip hop community. The song shows an understanding and empathy of both sides of the table. The greatest artists of our time use empathy to create great and relatable work.
Steve Job's knew empathy in design was the path to creating groundbreaking new products. The best product designers know their customers because they are their customers. Empathy guides the creation of the product. The greatest products of our time were built by founders who had the ability to empathize with the customers they are helping.
Last week I stood in the middle of a field in Africa while a plane flew overhead and dropped bags of food to the ground. Myself and others began to run, grab as much as we could, and carried home what we had picked up to feed our families. I experienced this shockingly first person perspective while wearing a $20 Google cardboard Virtual Reality headset in my living room. I was amazed at how real it felt. You should have seen the look on my Grandfather's face when I had him try it too.
Technology enabled me and the others who tried it, to in that moment empathize immediately in a way that reading text simply never could do as powerfully or effectively. Empathy is an incredibly powerful ability. With constant new technology and the increasing free flow of information on the internet I expect empathy to grow to be a more naturally occurring and common part of society. The earliest test of this theory is and will be the attitude of Millennials as they have had the greatest exposure to new technologies and open information. In the next few years we will see if I am right, but I believe an open mind and empathy are the way of the future.
3 Minutes Of Your Time: I Dare You To Watch This Entire Video
We all know its happening. It started somewhere between 2005-2010 when you bought your first smartphone. Over the next year, the way your brain worked began to change. You probably noticed that...
We all know its happening. It started somewhere between 2005-2010 when you bought your first smartphone. Over the next year, the way your brain worked began to change.
You probably noticed that your brain had a new friend through out the day, dopamine. Constantly fueled by Angry Birds, E-mail, the internet, Facebook, etc. Unfortunately, around that time you also stopped using your imagination in the same way. Unless you worked in a creative industry, you didn't need it anymore. If you had a burning question about life or that meal you just ate you could simply reach in your pocket and Google it. Voilà, the answer and some more dopamine are a mere reach away! No more waiting for and wondering what the answer could be. No more using your imagination to come up with creative solutions to the questions in your mind. I am not quite sure what the long lasting loss of imagination will be on society as a whole, but I don't imagine it could be too good.
That being said, the mass granting of access to information has been a powerful movement since web 1.0, but it has been a few years now. We need to ask ourselves is the knowledge we soak up like a sponge from the internet everyday the best use of our time, the most precious resource we are ever given. We must remember to protect our time.
So how bad have you gotten and how bad is your old friend dopamine affecting you today? Let's find out. I recently watched a video from Adam Conover who is the host of TV's Adam Ruins Everything, a pretty brilliant show if you haven't checked it out yet. In this video Adam asks for 3 minutes of your time. 3 minutes of your focused, attention, distraction free time. The best part of this video isn't actually the video itself, it is the self awareness that is created with every little lunge for your phone, browser tab you think to open, or fear of boredom you experience while you are watching. So give it a shot. I dare you to watch this entire video.
Teenagers, Technology, and Trends
As I write this it is Sunday night and I am getting some work done while the Teen Choice Awards are on the TV in the background. At this same time my youngest brother Alec, a teenager, is packing for college. As we grow up and older we tend to lose touch with the younger generations coming after us, without realizing it. Alec, jokingly and in little brother fashion, tends to make sure I remember this whenever I see him. Joking or not though, he is right.
As I write this it is Sunday night and I am getting some work done while the Teen Choice Awards are on the TV in the background. At this same time my youngest brother Alec, a teenager, is packing for college. As we grow up and older we tend to lose touch with the younger generations coming after us, without realizing it. Alec, jokingly and in little brother fashion, tends to make sure I remember this whenever I see him. Joking or not though, he is right.
It is important we pay attention and realize what is happening across all living generations. Especially those generations that can drive a wave of change through industries. The youngest generations are still refining their tastes as they age and because of that they are incredibly powerful. Like a bull in a china shop deciding which new app to take off the shelf.
Some of those businesses in the last few years which captured the attention of teenagers and were marked as early successes by them include Yik Yak, Vine, Jott and of course Snapchat. According to a recent Pew Research study, 71% of teenagers use multiple social media services. 52% of teens are on Instagram, 41% on Snapchat, 33% on Twitter, and 24% on Vine.
Most of these businesses have a common core. They allow teenagers to create. To create videos, messages, threads, and new content. On a day to day basis teens get the option to create something much more than other recent generations. They are the first age group to grow up completely from being a little kid while knowing what a Like, Retweet, or Fav is. And they are getting good at it. Teens are getting to be highly skilled with the ability to create. They are not happy with simply consuming others creations.
I think that was reinforced at Sunday nights Teen Choice Awards. The final awards of the night were not for Best Picture (Oscars) or Record of the Year (Grammys). Both awards that typically require the backing of massive corporations, studios, and labels in order to win. Sundays "Finale" awards were for Best Web Star.
We are seeing that this new class of teens is a group that admires and prefers authentic creations over what the generic media, studios, and labels pushes at them. Don't worry though, advertisers always find a way to get in with were the target audiences have shifted their gaze.
For now though, Bethany Mota won best Female Web Star and Cameron Dallas won best Male Web Star. Two people who created a following of millions, using platforms that are driven almost solely by the end user. I should also add they were the most happy, passionate, and excited about winning the award. That too felt more authentic.
So, to my point, and I will be sure to check in with my younger brothers if I am right or not, but I believe that removing the filters of traditional broadcasting and reaching an audience directly is clearly more powerful and will only continue to grow in power as this class of teens becomes adults. I think these teenagers will not only increase this trend, but hammer it home. This will be the future. The teenagers have already stated it as so.
A New Philosophy: The Future of Mobile Computing
I have decided that it is time to lay out my philosophies regarding the tech industry in the next few segments posted here. I have been following the tech industry
I have decided that it is time to lay out my philosophies regarding the tech industry in the next few segments posted here. I have been following the tech industry for a few years now and during which I have noticed several major macro-economic trends are developing and yes, I used the word macro-economic. I find these facts fascinating, however I will not blame anyone if you don’t share my enthusiasm. Here we go.
MOBILE
Now I know that mobile being the future is usually a gimme and very obvious. However, I feel that most people understand the way mobile is progressing into the future incorrectly. To start we need to lay down some numbers for a foundation. The human population of planet earth hit 7 billion as of March 2012 and is growing. There are 2.5 billion people on this planet that currently have access to the internet and there are 5 billion people with wireless cell phones. The current majority of those cell phone users having what we will call “dumb” phones for lack of a better term. It is important to note that the iPhone and most Android smartphones are now a few years old. If you connect those data points you will see that most older smartphone models which are connected to the internet are now being offered as the free phone by carriers to customers who want to upgrade from their “dumb” phones. These carriers use mostly two year contracts with their customers.
Therefore in the next two years, it is predicted that the actual population of the Internet will almost double thanks to new smartphone users coming online in various countries around the world with their new internet connected mobile devices. That’s not even including the 54.8 million tablets now online that didn’t even exist four years ago. It’s pretty incredible to think that the internet is only half the size of what it will be in just two years time, even though it’s been over 20 years since Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web at CERN. This single statistic shows that the internet as we have experienced it thus far is only the very beginning. The way the internet is experienced, looks, and interacts with human life is going to evolve drastically going forward in time.
There is a second part of the mobile renaissance that is misunderstood as well. Mobile devices won’t be the only devices used in the future. To clarify, mobile devices are referring to both tablets and smartphones, as opposed to PC’s, desktops, and gaming consoles. All of these devices matter and will be used together. There is a major reason why and my next theory/post will show you why.
To be continued…
You Only Live Once
Here we are at “The Starting Line”. Life is a blank slate in front of us. We only get one shot at this thing called life, and if there is one thing this generation knows
Here we are at “The Starting Line”. Life is a blank slate in front of us. We only get one shot at this thing called life, and if there is one thing this generation knows it is that we were raised to never waste a moment of it; to make the most out of every moment and follow our dreams.
YOLO. Extremely cliche but the question still remains, what will we do with our life? Our elders think that we expect too much out of life. That there is a work ethic epidemic. I disagree with that belief. What has happened is that the incentives which motivate a work ethic in younger generations has changed very rapidly in the past decade and at a pace with which many corporations and managers have failed to keep up. The world is more connected than ever, and is exponentially connecting even quicker. This is the first generation to know the existence of, to use, and to understand the repercussions of the Internet. It has always existed in our lives. Where to older generations it is simply another new thing that has come along. However, we are digital natives to this new world of technology. This means we see opportunities and have access to knowledge that our elders only dreamed of having at our age. To think that extreme alteration in mentality won’t have repercussions in the structure and organization of a workplace is naive and what those elders fail to realize is that an entire generation now has this new mentality. And yet, another sub generation still in high school has that mentality even stronger than those coming out of university. YOLO… Yes, this is a fad attributed to a rap song by Drake and true its use in pop culture has diminished its value, but it still has meaning. It’s a reminder to all people of their own mortality and it is a signal to all who are listening that we as a society are beginning to see a shift in paradigms.
In the past, older generations were paid and rewarded with the currency of money. But the future generation doesn’t see money having that same value to them. It’s value is not absent entirely, just very diminished. Younger generations prefer compensation in the form of life experience and personal time. They know “You Only Live Once”. This isn’t to say that the younger generations don’t have the will to work like their elders believe. It just means they don’t have the will to work for things they don’t believe strongly in and that won’t immediately contribute significant experience back into their lives. Time is the new commodity to be traded. In corporations of the future, flexibility could become the main corporate benefit. There is already a growing trend in the availability of flexibility to employees. More and more companies are adopting new technology which gives their employees the ability to work from home, push papers as they attend their relatives 4th of July BBQ, or send an email before they jump from the top of a cliff while living their dream of base jumping.
The companies that fail to acknowledge this shift in paradigms will pass away with those older generations. Corporations that wish to stay alive and avoid extinction will have to be as nimble and agile as these new generations are. Generation Y (born 1980's), Generation Z (born 1990's), and Generation AO (born 2000's) will each be more plugged in than their predecessor and exponentially more plugged in than the older dinosaurs who will inhabit the executive positions within the corporations that hire them. The new exchange system where money is a second best for employees, compared to the ability to gain individual experience will become the norm over time; regardless of if elder generations like it or not. The truth is that there is a new breed about to make their ascent in the modern world. We understand technology in a way that no others have before. This will be our upper hand in the world. Those who fail to embrace the new societal norm will not truly attain greatness in the world. To borrow a word from @Jason,
““Those who fail to strive for greatness will be the rice pickers and the people who do understand the new laws will be the samurais”.”
This is the Starting Line. I’ll ask you one more time. What do you plan to do with your life? I plan to get to the Finish Line. I hope to see you there…