what kind of a mad world do we live in where an app for sending pictures to your friends with a slight twist is worth $1B? That applies to both snapchat and instagram...
Given the graph in the article, it wouldn't surprise me if Facebook made another get-all-users-so-it-doesn't-threaten-core-business acquisition a la Instagram.<p>Although in this case, Facebook tried making a Snapchat clone (Poke) and failed miserably, so such an acquisition might show a weakness in Facebook product strategy and be somewhat embarrassing.
How Snapchat will actual monetize remains a mystery, but if I had to guess I would say they are working on a paid snap system. I'm not sure how they would go about creating ads that are relevant to the user. If I got a snap from a random company I imagine it would just piss me off. Maybe they will offer an ad free version via subscription model.
I don't see how you can base a long term business model on a technology that can easily be broken (i.e. cracking the app so that photos aren't deleted after some time like the sender intended).<p>I guess in the short term they can make some money and transition to some other business model, but I feel like "SnapchatKeep" is just around the corner if it doesn't exist already.