Snapchat says it generated $100 million in revenue for content partners on Discover in 2017, up from $58 million in 2016 and $10 million in 2015.
Why it matters: In the short-term, Snapchat's relationship with its publishing partners won't significantly impact revenue or investors' confidence in the platform, but in the long term, we've seen from Facebook how relationships with publishing partners can be crucial towards launching and popularizing new products.
Context on revenue: Facebook said it paid publishing partners using Instant Articles $1 million per day collectively last year. More than half of Instant Articles partners have reportedly abandoned the platform now that Facebook is pushing publisher content to “Watch” instead.
Facebook has used publishing partners to push new products onto its platform that it eventually popularized amongst general users.
Two examples:
- Watch: Facebook is reportedly transitioning its "Watch" premium video platform to now include more content from individual creators, similar to YouTube, after it initially launched the platform and hooked eyeballs to it with publisher-only content. Facebook has not reported how much revenue it is currently generating for content partners on Watch.
- Live: The company began paying publishers to produce "live" video content in 2016, only to stop paying them the following year after the product became popular enough to be sustained by everyday users.
