Why new social networks are born from Teens

Yesterday the news broke that Justin Bieber invested in a new photo social network for teens. Smart! His own personal brand can help get the first million users. And then it could snowball from here.

Have you noticed how the recent social networks getting some love are all widely adopted by teens? Snapchat, Instagram, Kik, Ask.fm

At HeyCrowd a huge part of our users are teens. We used to hide it like it was a problem. Now we're proud of it.

LinkedIn was launched in 2003. At that time you needed money to have a personal computer. And be over 25 to have some professional experience. A couple years later, Facebook was launched. College, campus, dorms, laptops, virality, boom! Some entrepreneurs have tried to reproduce this strategy from colleges. Not sure it worked. Remember LikeALittle? They were pretty cocky on TechCrunch. They shut down.

Now it's 2013. We are all part of many social networks. We read many news site. Content is everywhere. And we have work. And relationships. We're busy, you know? Always swamped. And we're sorry. We don't have time.

You discover a new social network and you think "Who has the time for this shit"? => T.e.e.n.s

They go to school. It's boring. They come home early. They can't really go have a drink with their friends. They don't have a meeting in 15 minutes. They got plenty of time in their hands. Guess what else is in their hands? A smartphone! Or an iPod touch. Or their dad's iPad, but he's at work, so they can use it. They find a cool app. They will Kik their friends. They'll talk about it at school. And soon 500K teens will download that new app.

And with the app store ranking system, do you know what happens when hundreds of thousands of people download the same app in a short period of time? Top 5 baby! Download explosion. Burst of new users. And not just from kids but from everyone. Hockey stickkkkk

And now you know why your 14yo niece is the new queen of the social media castle.