There is a war raging right now between IM apps with each trying to woo customers with new features and offerings. Facebook owned WhatsApp though has emerged as the top gun in this market segment with over 450 million users across the world. The Silicon Valley startup was acquired by Facebook last year at a whopping price of $19 billion, which is a testament to the popularity of the IM service. Competitors though have not backed away and are constantly making efforts to topple WhatsApp from the top of the list.
One such IM service is Snapchat, which has a few very exciting features that separate it from the rest of the pack and is hence witnessing a steady increase in the number of users worldwide. Many however feel that Snapchat is more suited to users who are in their teens while WhatsApp is a more general service that has a larger number of users who are over 20 or are seniors.
What Do WhatsApp and Snapchat Have To Offer?
Users expected Facebook to make wholesale changes to the existing WhatsApp platform after it acquired it in 2014. However, this has not happened and the most popular IM app continues to add more number of users daily. It still allows users to communicate through text messages and share media files like pictures, audio and videos over the internet.
You can also make groups and chat with multiple contacts simultaneously. It is one of the cheapest ways of staying in contact with your international friends as the service does charge any fee based on your location. The first year of service is free after which the user has to pay a nominal fee to continue using the app. Overall, WhatsApp seems to be a service for all age groups.
Snapchat on the other hand is more like an application to have fun rather than have full scale conversations. The most important feature that Snapchat offers is that users can share pictures and videos with others and can control the time for which the file will be available after which it will be automatically deleted.
This time limiting feature is what has made Snapchat a huge success among teens and young users as it allows them to have a little fun without having to worry about any privacy breach. While WhatsApp allows people to communicate with others via conversations and chats, Snapchat does not have the same framework and features.
Users can have some entertainment and fun by sending random pictures and videos, which are deleted after a period of time. Snapchat also supports a wide variety of platforms and allows users to edit pictures just like WhatsApp.
So Is Snapchat Really More Suited For Teens?
Teens today look for ways to have fun and photo sharing is one of the many popular ways of doing this. However, teens are often vulnerable and can fall victim to bullying or peer pressure if any of their private pictures and videos that they have shared with their contacts are leaked.
Snapchat allows users to control this as it lets them choose when to delete the content they share with others. This feature is what makes Snapchat such a hit among teens. WhatsApp though, is still the king of all IM messaging apps and provides a genuine way to stay in contact with friends and family members, which is something adults are actively looking to do.
But there is a large number of users in the teen age group who use WhatsApp, so it cannot be stated that WhatsApp is only for adults or seniors as a large part of the 450 million users are less than 20 years old.
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