Snapchat’s spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal “He likes to live in the present” by way of explanation. The unique publicity stunt aims to highlight how Snapchat is the most relevant form of communication today because of its ephemeral style of facilitating “instant expression.”
Snapchat is especially popular with people under 25. In recent times it has been moving to better profitability, through the introduction of a new “Discover” feature and in-app advertising. The BBC notes that UK mobile network Vodafone recently said that 75 percent of all of its traffic comes from Snapchat’s 100 million worldwide users.
The Twitter wiping came just hours after Spiegel published a bizarrely low-resolution video to YouTube explaining what Snapchat is using pen and paper. In the video, he proclaims “Identity is everything I have ever done” and suggests that Snapchat’s self-destruction of messages after a few seconds is key to the “instant expression” of communication that Spiegel is so fond of.
He may be intending to use Twitter in a manner more similar to that of his own Snapchat, posting Tweets only while they are still applicable to him. The Wall Street Journal suggests that he may be moving to a new stance as a more thought-provoking industry member.
Snapchat co-founder Bobby Murphy has also removed all of his tweets from his Twitter account. Spiegel’s is now populated by one retweet of a user who congratulated him on the Snapchat’s “cute as f***” icon” when it was updated in February 2015.
Snapchat is available on iOS and Android but has been subject to several hacks in the course of the past year. This has not significantly affected its worldwide appeal though and the platform continues to grow owing to its simple and bright functionality.
