Posted by Robin Follman-Otta & Sandro Siles
So, I was reading an article from Bloomberg Businessweek entitiled “Erasable You”; Why Snapchat might upend social media, undermine law enforcement and make the internet fun again”. (Feb. 11-17, 2013). For those of you who have never heard of Snapchat, it is bascially a free app that sends instant messages/texts that self destruct in 10 seconds…permanently from the internet. Amazing!
Of course, the first demographic segment to pick up on the value of this are the teenagers. They could send texts in class with varying comments, pictures, test answers and not worry about being “caught”; the messages would self destruct in 10 seconds…forever. How amazing would if somehow, marketers could piggy-back on this with Snapchat for advertising purposes. Snapchat has already become one of the leading downloaded apps out.
Can you imagine how this changes the how we view our concerns about our internet footprints we leave behind every time we surf the net or post information on various social media sites? Right now, whenever we visit a different search engine, our interests are gathered and stored by various research organizations to use for data interpretation and marketing strategies. What if everything we put on the internet we can control and delete without worry of it coming back to haunt us.
In theory, we deserve to have the right to control those internet footprints we leave but the costs associated with monitoring it would cut seriously into the revenue of giants such as Google and Yahoo…according to Bloomberg…2% of profits annual. Euf! God forbid, they have a conscience and responsibility to their subscribers.
Anyway, I would love to get back some of the seriously embarrassing photos my friends have posted of me with lampshades on my head and dancing in fountains (during college, I swear). It wouldn’t haunt me whenever I apply for a job in the future…they would just self-destruct in 10 seconds and I wouldn’t have to explain what I was doing 20 years ago to my potential future employer now.
Team J. Robin & Sandro
One reply on “Snapchat – Erasable You!”
I was just telling someone today, how I have to be careful when, where and how I am photographed. That red wine glass in hand isn’t always the best thing for potential employers.