At the dawn of Snapchat's IPO, the marketing and financial worlds alike are simply buzzing with speculation.
Will it sink or swim? Will it thrive, despite allegedly slowing user growth? And will its public-traded life get off on the right foot -- or will it stumble, in a fate similar to social network IPOs past? We know we've spent the past several months emphasizing the importance of Snapchat to marketers, and despite these questions, we stand by it.
The thing is, Snapchat has one major factor that sets it apart from other social networks that have sought IPOs: A physical product, the Spectacles. And to many analysts, it's this product that could truly reinforce Snapchat's standing and potential as a money-maker.
Our friends at Mediakix created this handy infographic to illustrate why they believe Snapchat Spectacles will be "the next $5 billion product." Spoiler alert: It has a lot to do with its mobile nature. As internet use via mobile continues to outrank that of desktop, it seems that gadgets are following suit. The adoption rates of the Apple Watch, for example, appear to be beating out those for the iPhone, suggesting that consumers are interested in wirelessly communicating without the use of their phones.
And while we'll admit that not all mobile gadgets share such success -- after all, look at what happened to Google Glass -- there's reason to believe that Snapchat, an app with fundamentally mobile roots, will have better luck. Read on to see why.