USC Talk & a surprise about Snapchat usage

I gave a talk at USC earlier this week about Automattic and WordPress — something I’ve done for 3 years in a row now.

It’s always a ton of fun, and I make sure to do a survey (by show of hands) each time to see what these undergrad & grad students are using in terms of popular services.

Here are the results:
WordPress: about 75%+ use WordPress in some capacity
Facebook: 100%
Twitter: about 75%
Tumblr: 33%
Note taking: Evernote vs Simplenote vs Pen & Paper: About 33% Evernote, the rest a combination of email, other apps, or nothing. And one person still using a pen & paper.
iOS vs Android: 75% iOS, 25% Android
SMS vs GroupMe vs MessageMe vs Snapchat: SMS still used by everyone, but the surprise here was Snapchat being used by over 50% of the class.

I asked the obvious question of what they were using Snapchat for – and the answer was that it was just a free SMS-like service, easy to send media, works all over the world and w/ friends overseas — and basically that everyone is on it. Was pretty clear it’s moved beyond the salacious roots (or at least how it was covered early on).

So a big thanks to Zach Posner for having me, and for his entire class for engaging in a really fun and interesting discussion – appreciate the tweets and Instagrams too 🙂

https://twitter.com/lismanson/status/321498086654492672

https://twitter.com/jenflaks/status/321474624875548672
https://twitter.com/WizardofAudj/status/321474471905087488
http://instagram.com/p/X3rez6Rst8/