Mini-posts: Snapchat vs Facebook, app unbundling, Stockholm’s tipping point
I’m trying out a new format with a post comprising of 2-3 mini-posts about trends and news from the tech world. A maximum of 10 sentences per post.
4 billion video views
Snapchat has announced 4 billion daily video views. Usually I would not pay any attention to such a vanity metric. But in this case, the number allows for an enlightening comparison: Just a couple of months ago, in April, Facebook reached the same milestone of 4 billion daily video views (sidenote: YouTube did so in the beginning of 2012). Facebook has almost 1 billion daily active users, compared to Snapchat’s nearly 100 million daily active users. The videos on Snapchat are extremely short, presumably much shorter than those on Facebook. That aside, an average Snapchat user views 10 times as many videos a day as a Facebook user. No surprise Snapchat is so hot.
Unbundling works – for Google and Facebook
Last year, many major Internet companies started to move certain features from their existing apps into newly launched, separate apps. “Unbundling” (or “app constellations“) was the latest trend, utilized by all the big names. A new comScore report shows for which companies this has worked the best: Facebook and Google (which in fact had been relying on this strategy for quite some time already). Among the top 10 most popular smartphone apps in the U.S. on iOS and Android combined, 3 are owned by Facebook (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram), and 5 by Google (YouTube, Search, Google Play, Google Maps, Gmail). Pandora Play and Yahoo Stocks are the only apps within the top 10 that are not owned by either company. Facebook’s initially controversial move to spin-off Messenger totally paid off. Meanwhile, unbundling did not work so well for other tech giants. Related news: Just this weekend, Google released Street View as yet another seperate app.
Stockholm’s tech tipping point
The VC fund SparkLabs recently published a ranking of the 10 hottest startup ecosystems in the world, and Stockholm ranked second after the Silicon Valley. While the accuracy of these kind of reports always can (and should) be questioned, the good result of the Swedish capital did not surprise me. In fact, it seems apparent to me that the city has reached its tipping point. From now on, past success and experience helps to build new, even bigger successes, with guaranteed international attention. Last Wednesday I attended a great conference, Stockholm Tech Fest. The amount of local bigshots among the speakers who shared their insights and experiences was astonishing. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, Skype-founder and seriel entrepreneur/VC Niklas Zennström, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Delivery Hero CEO Niklas Östberg (Berlin-based but Swedish), Truecaller Co-founder Nami Zarringhalam were among the speakers. I am truly excited about what comes next.
======
Sign up for the weekly newsletter so you do not miss any posts. Or subscribe through other channels.