Dive Brief: 

• When Snapchat turned down a $3 billion deal from Facebook last week, it was a nod to the messaging service's confidence in generating revenue on its own through in-app purchases and advertising. 
• Advertisers are still hesitant to jump onto the platform because of concerns over "sexting" and cyber-bullying, as well as a lack of solid data on Snapchat's users. 
• While it's thought that Snapchat's users are predominately young (in particular teens), the messaging service actually knows very little about its users. It does collect birth dates, emails and mobile phone numbers, but all interaction on the service is deleted as part of its privacy value proposition. 

Dive Insight: 

While Snapchat's popularity and young user base will work positively for the platform, before advertisers are really going to jump on board, Snapchat will need to find a way to prove its ad value. The feature with the most potential is the new "Stories" feature, which allows images and videos strung together to stay on the site for 24 hours. Advertisers could potentially use that feature to reach Snapchat users, but it would only appeal to certain brands.