The results are in, and they’re not good.

Snapchat’s controversial redesign is officially a flop, with its parent company, Snap Inc., reporting on Tuesday a paltry 4 million new daily users joined the app during Q1 — 3 million less than Wall Street projected, and the fewest amount Snap has added as a public company. Dig deeper and it only gets worse for Snap, with its 2.13 percent growth rate the worst in the company’s history.

CEO Evan Spiegel acknowledged the redesign has been a dud in his prepared remarks, and said the company is now tweaking the redesign by putting Stories on the right side of the app.

Also Read: Snap Inc. Lays Off Nearly 100 in Latest Round of Job Cuts

“We learned that combining watching Stories and communicating with friends into the same place made it harder to optimize for both competing behaviors,” said Spiegel. “We are currently rolling out an update to address this by sorting communication by recency and moving Stories from friends to the right side of the application, while maintaining the structural changes we have made around separating friends from creators and sorting friends’ Stories by relationships.”

The move comes only months after Snap moved all Stories and messages from friends to the left side of the app, leaving the right side for content from social stars and Snap’s publishing partners. Many loyal users weren’t thrilled with the redesign to begin with; earlier this year, 1.2 million users signed a petition for Snapchat to revert back to its classic design. Maybe this redesigned redesign will work out better.

6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)

Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post

The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”

Also Read: Important Update: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Isn’t World’s Richest Person Anymore
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Chris Hughes - The New Republic

The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."

Also Read: NY Post Roasts Trump White House With Epic Cover, Evokes CBS’ ‘Survivor’ (Photo)
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Pierre Omidyar - The Intercept

The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”

Also Read: Former Intercept Journalist Arrested for Bomb Threats on Jewish Sites
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Peter Thiel

The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.

Also Read: Gawker Media to Sell Flagship Site, Hulk Hogan to Receive 45 Percent of Proceeds
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Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook

OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.

Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.

Also Read: 3 Ways Facebook Can Jump Into the News Business
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Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse

Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.

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