Zuckerberg calls Snapchat a 'super-interesting privacy phenomenon'

Snapchat is the next-big thing as far as messaging apps go and even Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg can’t help but sing praises of it. In a freewheeling interview, Zuckerberg called Snapchat a “super-interesting privacy phenomenon.”   Facebook co-founder, Zuckerberg, was in conversation with Stanford University President John Hennessy this week and the talk, covered by TechCrunch, veered in directions such as NSA surveillance, artificial intelligence and of course, Snapchat. For those of you who’ve just tuned in to Snapchat’s rising popularity, **Facebook had offered to purchase the application for a whopping $3 billion last year** . Google and WeChat company TenCent too had **thrown their hats into the ring** . Snapchat’s founder – some even call him the perfect heir to Zuckerberg in the social circuit – Evan Speigel refused to sell his company and may even be looking at raising funds for it this year.   Zuckerberg initially touted Facebook’s role in creating a new in-between space for users who swung between private and public mediums, as far as social networking went. For private messages, they turned to messengers and for public broadcasts, they turned to blogs. Enter Facebook, and a new space was created to manage both these circles at one place. However, the publication reminds, that Facebook is not alien to controversies where it tried to break the wall between public and private down by urging users to share more publicly. With Facebook attempting to follow Twitter’s footsteps with more follow options and better ways to broadcast, this may not be true anymore.   As far as Snapchat goes, Zuckerberg is full of praise for the startup. “I think Snapchat is a super-interesting privacy phenomenon because it creates a new kind of space to communicate, which makes it so that things that people previously would not have been able to share, you now feel like you have place to do so,” he said. “And I think that’s really important, and that’s a big kind of innovation that we’re going to keep pushing on and keep trying to do more on, and I think a lot of other companies will, too.”   The praise lavished on Snapchat comes as a bit of a surprise too, especially since Zuckerberg’s own Snapchat clone, Poke, failed to do too well in the markets. With a $3 billion offer, it is clear Snapchat desires a private, self-destructing messaging app. It now needs to be seen what Facebook can do to also make a mark in this niche. We’re putting our money on a more evolved Messenger.