A new service, Snapchat, has joined the constellation of social media services with potential business implications. Snapchat is a mobile application, originally aimed at teenagers, which allows users to send photos and text that ‘‘disappear’’ from a recipient’s inbox within 10 seconds of viewing. Although the temporary nature of its messages is a key feature of Snapchat, there are ways around the permanent deletion of these messages, and forensic data vendors can retrieve Snapchat images from a phone’s memory. Additionally, the application tracks the date and time each message is sent, received, and opened, as well as the identity of senders and recipients.

As of June 2013, Snapchat, whose logo features a smiling ghost evocative of the fleeting quality of its message product, said it was processing more than 200 million user messages per day. New York magazine recently reported that Snapchat had transcended its intended demographic and that bankers on Wall Street were ‘‘obsessed’’ with using the smartphone application to share embarrassing and incriminating pictures and texts with friends while avoiding more permanent social media sites such as Facebook, where a current or prospective employer might find them.

Originally published in Bloomberg BNA's Securities Regulation & Law Report, 45 SRLR 1488, 08/12/2013..