Never post anything to social media that you wouldn't want your mother to see.
可决不能在社交媒体上放些让自己老妈看到的东西。
A pretty good rule of thumb, if you assume a particular post will linger in perpetuity.
如果认为你特别晒出的东西会永久珍藏的话,这可是条经验之谈。
A new app called Snapchat, however, argues that some photos and messages should not stay with us forever.
现在一款叫做snapchat的新应用就主张一些相片或者信息不应该永久保存。
That's why the app lets you set an expiration of up to 10 seconds for shared content after it's viewed.
这个应用会让你设置分享的内容在被观赏过最长10秒后就消失得无影无踪。
The app developers then delete these “snaps” from their servers.
开发这款应用的人在保存期过后就会从服务器中把分享的内容删除。
Sounds like the perfect app for sexting, although Snapchat's makers insists that's not what it's for.
虽然snapchat的制造商坚持认为这不是他们的初衷和用途,但听上去确实像是为发布黄色照片内容量身定制的应用。
Anyone who goes that route should know Snapchat is subject to search warrants just like any other site.
任何人如果真的按要求使用,都应该知道snapchat像任何网站一样是经过授权才能发布。
And they store unopened snaps for 30 days.
并且他们的未公开照片都会保留30天。
Facebook and Google like the app so much they each offered to snatch up Snapchat for billions of dollars.
而这一应用十分讨脸书和谷歌的喜爱,他们都想出几十亿美元购买。
Not bad for a two-year-old company with no revenue.
这对一个没有资金刚刚起步2年的小公司而言其实还不错。
Snapchat declined both offers.
但Snapchat却拒绝了这两家巨头。
Maybe they want to follow Twitter's path to a big IPO.
也许他们自己想要走推特的老路搞个大型IPO公开上市。
If they're just holding out for more money, they better hope their appeal lasts longer than one of their snaps.
假使只想等更多的钱送上门,他们最好指望人们喜爱这款应用,怎么也得比他们一张照片显示的时间长一些。