Most teenagers and young adults are familiar with Snapchat and use it almost every day. Many however, do not know the story behind the widely popular app. Evan Spiegel, a Stanford drop out, started the company with two other guys while they were in college. The idea came to Spiegel when his friend came into his room to complain about a photo he sent that he wished would disappear. This led to the initial idea of pictures that would vanish after a certain period of time upon receiving them. Spiegel and his partner Bobby Murphy, found a programmer who could create a prototype. The app was not very successful in the beginning. The original name was Picaboo, and only hosted around 130 users. Siegel however, did not come out with a clear intention for the app, the team toyed with the idea of marketing the app as an adult picture messaging with the statement “Picaboo lets you and your boyfriend send photos for peeks and not keeps!”  Thank God they refrained from publicizing that idea.  There was no real intended user for the app, but after looking at patterns in usage, Spiegal and his team discovered that students were using it during class to send notes and communicate because social media such as Facebook was blocked. Snapchat has revolutionized social media. It allows users to practice their photography skills by taking selfies, as well as posting photos to your story and sending temporary photos to your friends. Snapchat has gone toe to toe with Facebook’s app Poke. Poke was an app developed by Facebook that has the same concept of Snapchat. The average age of Facebook’s user went from 18 to 40. Snapchat’s users, on average, are younger than that of Facebook’s, which factors into the success of Snapchat over Facebook. I personally use Snapchat because it is easier than most other social networks and can be more personal. I enjoy sending pictures and short videos to my friends and I can even communicate with my cousins in England instantly and easily. Spiegel had the opportunity to sell his company and cash out and retire at 24. After beating out Facebook’s app, Poke, Zuckerberg offered to buy the company for $3 billion. Spiegel turned down the offer and still runs the company today. Snapchat is still a young company and I am excited to see what will happen to Spiegel and what the future of the company holds.