When 21 year old Stanford University student Evan Spiegel stood up in a Stanford product design class in April 2011 to present an idea for his final project, it was derided by his classmates as a 'terrible idea'. It was a mobile phone app designed to allow 'self destructing' pictures that would disappear, without a trace, after a few seconds. Today, Spiegel has hit 22, and Snapchat is being used to send 50 million messages a day, while battling with Facebook, which launched a similar app called 'Poke'. Scroll down for video Snapchat has become a huge success, with over 50m pictures a day being sent. The firm is even fending off Facebook, who's Poke app has similar features.
@highlight
Snapchat set up by two Stanford students, despite classmates' reservations
@highlight
Service still hugely popular, even though Facebook launched its own version
@highlight
App yet to generate any revenue - and founders claim they are not selling
watched technological battle of the year, as Facebook's new '@placeholder' app