So far I'm a big fan of the idea of your app! I've been apart of Deviantart since the day it started, and dabbled in every other image sharing platform available for the artist community. I just have a few questions if it's okay, about the App and the business model surrounding it, based on all the responses I've read in this thread so far.
What is the target demographic for Snapshot? Is it A) Instagram model type, B) Visual Artists type (specifically the DeviantArt userbase), C) Snapchat userbase, or D) The investors themselves? I ask this question because demographics A, B and C do not mix well together on a platform that involve popularity contests and each require a different set of incentives to leave their current platforms. You'll get weird results if selfies of girls wearing lingerie (instagram) are competing with digital paintings. (deviantart).
At this point it seems you have 2 main incentives for people to use your product. Snap points ($$) and Rankings, the problem is in order to win the rankings people should be focused on quality, while the items available for purchase from either money or snap points are fluff pieces geared towards selfie spam, the opposite of the desired product for rankings. Plus by using Snap Points as rewards for rankings, you have to limit the users allowed to use the program. Less users, less money coming in, less profits - and again, if investors are the main demographic, I don't see them flocking to spend money on stickers or aesthetic upgrades. I guess I just don't really understand the income potential and how you're planning on monetizing the user base. Is it just stickers? Is there ad revenue too?
(The rest of the questions are just me curious as a potential user)
Is each photo that is saved submitted to be voted on? If so, how will you handle people who spam selfies?
How will the app handle categories and browsing? Do you have plans for equal viewership for all photos that are eligible for voting, if there is an abusively high submission rate? (IE: On Deviantart the popular, stay popular because they get the most likes, because they have the most followers. Quality no longer matters at this point they also really failed to handle the growth of their user base as submission rates increased. They're a good example of reactive management that's severely damaged their financial holdings)
What are your plans for moderation to prevent it from becoming an app for sharing porn images? Will there be approval before photos are shared to the public, or report features? (Most art communities tend to degrade to this point if not moderated, however financially it may be preferential that it happens if you change business models to be ad based)
How will you stop people from taking a picture of a picture, and claiming at as their own? I can pull up a photograph on my computer, pull out my phone and snap a picture to make it look like I'm the original photographer. I do it all the time with my own artwork for Instagram, because I don't want to fiddle with running it on an emulator. This will become a much bigger issue the larger the user base becomes.
Sorry if any of these questions were too far off base. I came here to learn more about your app for investment reasons, but I'm a big geek when it comes to possible artwork sharing platforms. I can't help myself, I want to know ALL THE THINGS.
I really wish I hadn't missed the closed Alpha!
There are many question and we currently very busy but we will try to address them. We feel that Snapshot is a platform that has space for users and investors. At the end of the day users will always come first. Keeping users happy is what will cause Snapshot to grow, and Snapshot growing is what is required to increase investor earnings.
Photograph stickers and custom skins are intended for use in the messaging service, not necessarily for weekly photograph rankings. We don't have to limit the amount of users who participate in weekly rankings as Snap token prizes are only given out to the highest ranking users. Scaling is not an issue in this respect.There are many methods to monetize this type of platform. We will be starting out with custom stickers, UI skins and photo retrieval. While these may seem trivial they can be large earners, for example the messaging application LINE generated 271million USD purely from stickers during 2015. There are other methods we will implement in the future but we feel that first and foremost we should develop a large user base with dedicated users prior to other forms of monetization. It's give and take, we need people to understand we are providing a good service before certain methods to earn revenue would be considered acceptable by the public.
Only photographs which are "keeped" are eligible for Weekly rankings, but "keeping" a photograph does not automatically submit them. Users have to submit these photo's in the application.
Currently there is only a general weekly rankings, the most viral images will receive Snap tokens, this is regardless of the category the picture might fall in. We
are currently working on select categories so users submitting different types of content can be voted on against their peers. This is something that should be available by the end of September.
Moderation for pornographic images is taken very seriously and is not something that is accepted. There is a report function for images on the rankings. Once an undisclosed amount of reports have been made it will be forwarded to our moderation team for decision. This will be the case for any unnecessarily graphic or offensive images.
We are currently trying to develop methods which catch when someone takes a picture of another users work. Usually they are easily visible but high quality shots can slip by. It is something we don't currently have an answer for but we are working to alleviate the issue.
No need to apologize, thoughtful questions such as these are important and we thank you for asking them.
