Snapchat Poaches A Facebook Executive To Figure How To Make Money
Randall was a global director at Facebook, where he has been employed for the past four years. Previously, Snapchat poached Instagram's business head Emily White from Facebook.
Snapchat is using 2014 to launch a suite of new products and hire the rest of its executive team. It hired a security head from Google in May and a Senior VP from News Corp in April. Randall's hiring is a signal that CEO Evan Spiegel may finally start putting some of the monetization ideas he's been teasing to the test.
Spiegel has said he's considered in-app purchases over traditional advertising on Snapchat, a model that's been proven by other messaging services WeChat and WhatsApp.
The company may not be opposed to advertising altogether. Recently, Snapchat launched its "Our Stories" feature, an events-driven feed of snaps that are temporarily made public, with the EDC festival in Las Vegas. Participants were able to add filters and EDC logos to their content, which could signal future native advertising partnership ideas with other brands.
Currently, Snapchat has more than 70 million monthly active visitors. One billion "stories" - a combination of videos and pictures in a single message - are viewed per day. Stories recently surpassed the number of snaps, Snapchat's flagship product, viewed per day.