Facebook reportedly made a $3 billion bid in 2013 to buy Snapchat, the video and photo social media company, which the latter turned down. Two years later, it seems that Snapchat made a wise decision as daily video views on the platform have touched the 6 billion mark, very close to the 8 billion video views on Facebook, reported the Financial Times.
Snapchat catching up fast to Facebook
Six months ago, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel told Bloomberg that daily video views were 2 billion. In such a short time, they have grown to 6 billion, tripling, which makes it a remarkable achievement for the company. Around six months ago, video views on Facebook were double that of Snapchat, but the photo messenger has caught up very fast.
Video advertising is one of the most profitable segments of social media, and Snapchat is seeing tremendous growth in this important area. The platform has become increasingly advertiser-friendly through ads and media partnerships. Earlier this year, its market value was calculated at up to $19 billion.
What counts as a “view”?
Different platforms have different criteria for determining what constitutes a “view,” and this might lead to discrepancies. Google counts only instances as “view” when a YouTube video is watched for 30 seconds or more, whereas anything that is watched for over 3 seconds on Facebook is counted as a “view.” On the other hand, Snapchat counts all instances as a “view” when a video just loads. Whether it has been watched or not does not matter.
The fact that even loaded ads are counted as views raises concerns among advertisers, which are worried that they are required to pay even for ads that viewers play for less than a second. Despite that, the fact that the company has touched the 6 billion daily video views mark will give it better bargaining power while negotiating with advertisers.
Earlier this month, following the change in the policy from Snapchat, several users were concerned that the California-based company was storing their photos and videos on its servers. This resulted in a sort of controversy that Snapchat tried to defend itself from. Snapchat clarified its changes through a blog post, reassuring its 100 million daily users that the “photo messages are automatically deleted from our servers once we detect that they have been viewed or have expired.”
