THE ‘SHORT STORY’ OF A SOCIAL NETWORK

Like most social networks, Snapchat was born in Silicon Valley, in

Northern California.

Evan Spiegel was a student at Stanford University, he majored in product design and
developed the idea to design a new app where you could send photos, but they only
lasted for 10 seconds. The other students in the course thought it was ridiculous and
non-sense! But Spiegel was positive about his idea and after graduating, he went back
home and set up the social network in the sitting room of his father’s house, and at
first it was a real successful idea!

The name Snapchat is a combination of two words: SNAP, which is a term for a
photograph, and CHAT, which means to talk. With Snapchat you send photos and
videos, and you talk to your friends.

When in 2013 Snapchat was launched, this was not a very original idea,
because you could already do this on Facebook, but Snapchat was
different: your friends could only see the photo for 10 seconds! Instead, if
you put a photo on FB, it can be accessed forever. With Snapchat, it
seemed that privacy was no longer a problem! So, Snapchat became very popular with
young users.

However, Snapchat’s success didn’t last! At the end of the same year, the Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel, rebuffed a $3 billion takeover
offer from Facebook’s owner Mark Zuckerberg. And it was a big mistake!

The downgrade of Snapchat came when Instagram, another photo-sharing

service acquired by Zuckerberg for just $1 billion, introduced its “face
filters” The feature, which allows users to personalize photos with realistic-
looking digital elements, was just the latest in a long list of tools Instagram
has developed to blunt Snapchat’s growing appeal to younger users.

Zuckerberg slowly turned Instagram into a Snapchat killer, by providing product

updates and many new features — from photo filters to digital sunglasses — that
appealed to the same target of youthful demographic which Spiegel had used to build
up Snapchat.

The death knell for Snapchat was Instagram Stories, a video-sharing feature which
makes the photos disappear after 24 hours.

In conclusion, Instagram can now mimic all Snapchat features plus others, and, when
combined with Facebook, it can offer advertisers access to more than 2 billion users,
and their online “likes” and habits.

That’s probably the sad ending of the Snapchat’s Story!

 GLOSSARY

Spiegel majored in product design.

To major = specializzarsi (in una materia al college)

In the American Universities students can choose several subjects. The most
important subject is called ‘the major’, and the others are ‘the minors’. In this
case the verb to major has been used. But we could also use the noun or the
adjective and say: Spiegel was a major in product design, because his major
subject was product design.

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With Snapchat it seemed that privacy was no longer a problem=

Con Snapchat sembrava che la privacy non fosse più un problema.

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Spiegel rebuffed Zuckerberg’s takeover offer.

To rebuff = to reject while showing displeasure = to spurn = to scorn= to

despise= rifiutare con disprezzo.

Takeover offer = offerta per acquisire To takeover = sostituire, subentrare,

rilevare.

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Downgrade = recesso

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Zuckerberg slowly turned Instagram into Snapchat killer.

To turn into = trasformare in

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Youthful =young

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Instagram has developed tools to blunt Snapchat’s appeal.

To blunt = smussare= in questo caso decrease diminuire

Also remember the Adjective blunt and its opposite sharp (example: a sharp
knife or a blunt blade)
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The death knell for Snapchat was Instagram Stories.

death knell= colpo di grazia/condanna a morte ( anche in senso letterale oltre

che figurato)

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Instagram can now mimic all Snapchat features.

To mimic = imitare da non confondere con to mime = mimare

Feature = characteristic

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