Snapchat rivals Facebook in photos with 350M "snaps" per day

Ephemeral messaging app Snapchat is now on equal footing with Facebook in the photo-sharing department. The app currently sees 350 million "snaps" sent per day, Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel said Monday.

Spiegel announced the new figure, up from 200 million snaps in June, during an interview at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. The snap, the essence of the mobile app for iOS and Android, is a photo or video message users send to friends that disappears after a few seconds.

Because a snap can be likened to a photo share, one could argue that the 2-year-old application has already become as popular a destination for exchanging photos as Facebook, which has long been the leader in photo-sharing and counts more than 350 million photo uploads per day.Spiegel, however, doesn't necessarily consider Facebook or its photo-sharing app Instagram as competitors, arguing instead that the temporary nature of Snapchat content makes the app the perfect complement to other social networks where people can share lasting memories.

"The fundamental premise of Snapchat is that it's better and more fun if you delete everything except the things that are really important that you want to save," Spiegel said.

With 350 million snaps sent per day, it would seem the startup's user base agrees and is progressively sharing more and more fleeting moments with friends each day. And though Spiegel may downplay a competition with other social networks, should people fully embrace the it's-more-fun-to-delete philosophy, Snapchat will make a dent in the number of photos people chose to upload elsewhere.