http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/13/snapchat-facebook-buyout-offer-rejected

The popular and rapidly growing messaging app “Snapchat” recently turned down a $3billion dollar acquisition offer from social media leader Facebook Inc. The CEO and Co-founder, former Stanford student Evan Speigel says that he won’t be taking any offers into consideration until 2014 on the premise that the app will be able to continue to grow its user base and therefore “justify an even larger valuation”. To date the app has been downloaded by almost 10% of mobile phone users in the U.S. and currently has 350million photos being exchanged daily. Although Snapchat has been growing at an exceptional speed as it has only been around since 2011, the app has earned no revenue and like tech start-ups such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter people question its profitability and actual intrinsic value. Speigel is only 23 year old and a part of me questions what’s really driving his decision making process. Facebook’s offer of $3billion is a very handsome and in my opinion a rather generous one considering at the Snapchat’s future is extremely unknown. They have little to no proprietary elements to their product or business model. Snapchat needs to maintain their cool factor if they hope to grow at their current rate and in today’s technology world for something to be cool is as fleeting a definition as ever. I personally believe the decision was greedy and would not refuse a 3$billion dollar offer for my “cool” app.