
Facebook’s new teens-only app Lifestage turns bios into video profiles - jamesjyu
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/19/facebook-lifestage/
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niftich
Another Snapchat Stories clone. But!

" _it mimics the way Facebook was originally launched — school by school_ "

" _you select your high school, and will then see the video profiles from
people at your school or ones nearby_ "

" _While technically anyone can download Lifestage, anyone 22 or older will
only be able to see their own profile. That 's because it's built for high
schoolers to learn more about their classmates. A quick swipe lets you block
and report people too in case anyone sketchy tries to creep on the kids._"

This gating is really interesting and mimics the feature of Snapchat that
makes it so that all interaction is friends-only-by-default. This is crucial
because other social networking and/or popularity apps are usually public-by-
default or encourage it heavily by the nature of the content (Instagram,
Twitter, Tumblr, Vine), which extends popularity contests globally, and
separately, makes unsavory interactions with strangers more likely.

In other words, it's possible that this particular set of attributes, which
keeps it grounded in the immediate, existing peer group of teens, will result
in its long-term success.

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thegoatofmendes
reminds me of an old parent trying to pretend that they understand their
teenage kids. fb is going to be irrelevant to the next generation. i always
tell people that their death is going to be by 1000 cuts the same way that
yahoo did.

there are already several very successful social apps/products (snapchat,
pinterest, twitter) that aren't owned by fb and there are going to be many
many more in the coming years that will each divert a small bit of attention
away from fb. eventually it will all add up. ironically many of these social
apps/platforms are going to be inspired by wanting to follow zuckerberg's
success and are going to turn down acquisition offers (see snapchat).

i genuinely think that they should follow google's lead and invest in areas
outside of their core product. creating their own cell phone network (like how
google is with internet service) would be a great investment for them. this
will allow them to continue to mine people's data while also expanding their
product line, and thus reducing the damage that the future social apps are
going to do. keeping all their eggs in one basket is a terrible long term
strategy.

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yanilkr
How did you manage to equate this simple act of kindness to Facebook's entire
future strategy?

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thegoatofmendes
This was the first line in the article.

"What if I figured out a way to take Facebook from 2004 and bring it to 2016?"

It's dead obvious that they're trying to stay relevant to younger users.

A better question - how did you equate this product launch with an act of
kindness?

