The end of Snapchat as we know it?

A number of websites have sprung up recently, revealing the scary truth for lots of high schoolers: people can screengrab your Snapchat pic, dumbo.
Snapchat, for those unfamiliar,* is a picture messaging app where users can send photos to each other that disappear after a few seconds.  Obviously, people are sending....intimate....selfies all the time to their bfs, gfs, bffs, and lots of other fs, I'm sure.

CNN actually ran a story recently, on "The Perils of Snapchat":


My favorite part comes from Samuel Burke:

"And let's be honest here, Hala, a lot of people are using these to send private photos." 

Or, translated:

"And let's be honest here, Hala, I'm using these to send private photos."

This opens a ton of legal issues, particularly where minors are concerned, but I want to focus on three semi-businessy ideas here:

1. My kids will give me their phone every week with NOTHING deleted. I get to see everything.** 

2. Snapchat's "special sauce" is officially obliterated. I'll be interested to see if the company continues forward, ignoring the controversy, or if they see the need to evolve. Let's be honest, Snapchat knows why so many people download the app. I'm not sure why it's a surprise to users that screenshots are a possibility, but now even the illusion of privacy has eroded.

3. Is Snapchat, or other gimmicky things like it, a way that businesses can interact with fans and followers?  What if there were an app or a site that used short, time-sensitive photos to offer deals, give secret passwords, or do treasure hunts. Instead of offers expiring, clues expired.  What would that do, to make customers excited to shop for your stuff?  What would that feel like for consumers? Oh I don't know, maybe....

What's the next creative way to interact with others in the mobile world?  Snapchat introduced the time-sensitive nature to this.  I could easily see a video version of this app, too.  Or what if you could send an audio clip that "will self-destruct in..." or something.  

I might be in love with this idea, now that I'm writing about it. It's an extra way to differentiate yourself.  Instead of merely repeating your product in multiple spaces, what if you enhanced it differently depending on the platform of choice for consumers?


*or with actual lives.
**how is this related to business? well, I MEAN BUSINESS.