Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal invested $500 million in Snap’s initial public offering, expanding its reach into digital media by acquiring a stake in the $28 billion disappearing-photo service popular with millennials.

NBC Chief Executive Officer Steve Burke, in a memo to staff Friday, called the move a “significant milestone” in the media company’s partnership with Snap. The Comcast unit will be subject to a 12-month lockup period as part of its investment, meaning it can’t sell Snap’s shares for a year, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Snap surged 44 percent Thursday on their first day of trading, and gained another 12 percent Friday.

With the latest investment, NBC has now committed over $1.5 billion to digital businesses in the last 18 months, including two separate $200 million investments in BuzzFeed, and a $200 million investment in Vox Media, the online publisher of the Verge, Eater and Recode.

Last summer, NBC produced a Snapchat channel featuring Olympic content run by BuzzFeed, which generated over two billion views, Burke said in the memo. With the Snap investment, NBC will expand its partnership with the social-media network and BuzzFeed for the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea, and launch more shows with additional NBC brands in the coming weeks, he said.

Eoin Treacy's view

Snap Inc. is another major venue for social media and particularly for the mid-teen to mid-20s demographic. One of the slides from the above report from Torsten Slok highlights the fact that the 26-year old demographic is the single largest in the USA so it is important both from a size and spending perspective which is why there is such interest in Snapchat from companies like NBC.  

The question at this stage is to what extent Snap can deliver on the earning expectations that have already been priced in. It will be particularly instructive to see what happens once the lock up ends. The company has been pushing people to commit to ownership for 12 months but according to this article only about 25% have made that commitment. 

Snap has outsourced much of the back end of customer acquisition to Alphabet so regardless of what happens as long as Snap is a viable entity Alphabet will benefit 

This article from Bloomberg focusing on the slowdown in conventional advertising at WPP is a bellwether for social media companies who can deliver targeted, highly focused messaging rather than expensive blanket exposure. 

WPP formed a downside weekly key reversal this week and will need to hold the region of the trend mean if medium-term potential for additional upside is to be given the benefit of the doubt.