Buried in the announcement is how Snap is shutting down Zenly and firing everyone who worked on it in Paris, France. Zenly is a location-based social application (think: you can see & connect with your friends on a map). Snap bought them in 2017 for a reported $250-350M when they had ~4M installs. Now Zenly is at 40M MAUs, growing strong as I heard from employees working there.
Zenly is (was?) popular in Japan, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and the Nordics. In Japan, it is head-on-head as the most used social app with Line.
I find it odd that Snap just shuts down an app that was so popular in regions that is hard to gain foothold for any social media team. They could have likely sold it or spun it out, but chose not do so.
It's also not like the app is a major cost to the company. Less than 100 people work on it across Snap, most based in Paris, France.
Zenly is (was?) popular in Japan, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and the Nordics. In Japan, it is head-on-head as the most used social app with Line.
I find it odd that Snap just shuts down an app that was so popular in regions that is hard to gain foothold for any social media team. They could have likely sold it or spun it out, but chose not do so.
It's also not like the app is a major cost to the company. Less than 100 people work on it across Snap, most based in Paris, France.