Last week, when Facebook announced that it sees over eight billion video views per day, you likely said well, that’s a hell of a lot of video views. And you’d be right, it is.
But here’s a number that’s even more surprising. Ephemeral messaging app Snapchat is reportedly seeing six billion video views per day, according to sources quoted by Financial Times.
The company reported around two billion back in May, so in just a half a year Snapchat has tripled its video views.
And advertisers are surely taking notice.
Snapchat, a service that is used almost entirely by millennials, recently drew the ire of some users over an updated privacy policy.
Last week, Snapchat updated its terms to give itself “worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish, create derivative works from, publicly perform, broadcast, distribute, syndicate, promote, exhibit, and publicly display that content in any form and in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).”
We pointed out that this language is certainly nothing new in the industry, as apps like Facebook and Instagram basically say the same thing in their terms. It’s also not that different from how the terms read before the update.
Snapchat added the word “store” when it comes to your content, and that sent users up in arms.
Now, hearing the internet clamor, Snapchat decided to clarify its actions.
“First off, we want to be crystal clear: The Snaps and Chats you send your friends remain as private today as they were before the update. Our Privacy Policy continues to say—as it did before—that those messages “are automatically deleted from our servers once we detect that they have been viewed or have expired.” Of course, a recipient can always screenshot or save your Snaps or Chats. But the important point is that Snapchat is not—and never has been—stockpiling your private Snaps or Chats. And because we continue to delete them from our servers as soon as they’re read, we could not—and do not—share them with advertisers or business partners,” said the company in a blog post.
But users are clearly flocking to Snapchat, as it often provides a more immediate feel and certainly less permanence that Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. And with six billion video views per day, ad spend on Snapchat is likely to explode.