2 Social Media Behomoths Ramp-Up Under Pressure

 

Snapchat, Twitter redesigning under pressure

Illustration: Rebecca Zisser / Axios 

Snap Inc. stock cratered after earnings fell short of expectations. CEO Evan Spiegel announced Snapchat is redesigning its app, which the company hopes will lead to increased user adoption.

• Speigel on earnings call: "The one thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use."
• Why it matters, from Axios' Sara Fischer and Kia Kokalitcheva: Snapchat has been assuring investors since going public in March that its strategic investments in ad technology would drive revenue, particularly in North America, and that the creation of copycat products by rivals, like Instagram and Facebook Stories, would not continue to slow its user growth. Its earnings show that the company still has a long way to go in achieving those goals.
• Redesigning its app is a big sign that it's feeling the pressure to make big changes quickly.
• CNBC headline during the earnings call: "SNAP STORY OVER?"
• See Snap stats.

P.S. Twitter 280: As we told you in the lead of Axios PM ... Twitter, after years of forcing us to express ourselves under its signature 140-character limit, is doubling that length for everyone.

• Axios' Kia Kokalitcheva points out that the character limit has been iconic, and led to the "tweetstorm" as a workaround for longer thoughts.
• But, like Snap, Twitter has been under pressure to make its service easier to understand and use.