Facebook Introduces 'Lifestage', A Youth-centric Social Media App

Facebook just made a social media app exclusive to youths 21 years old and below. Yes, you heard it right, just for the adreline driven youngsters. The new app Lifestage was released in Apple App store last August 19.

The app was inspired with Facebook's humble beginning as a network of college students in Harvard and other ivy league universities. The creator wanted to recreate how the Facebook went viral in the first place. The app is more like a video diary of the likes and dislikes of the user. Instead of posting a picture of your dog and typing "#ILoveDogs" you make a short clip with you probably cuddling the dog. The more you answer with video clips, the more biography questions is pop out in your profile. It also connects you with your schoolmates and other users near you. This way stalking on crush is a lot easier, right?

Who else could think about creating an app exclusive for the youth? Of course a youth. The creator of the app was none other than the 19-year-old creator of 4snaps, Michael Sayman. Michael Sayman is now working as a Facebook product manager. He conceptualized an app to target the demographic where high school and college students fall. By targetting a specific demographic like teens, this creates a community wherein people in the same generation can freely share their stories and experiences be it good or bad without being bothered that other people (usually older than you), judging you.

Michael Sayman got his job in Facebook when he was invited by Mark Zuckerberg himself to present in Facebook headquarters to become an intern. Michael Sayman had his big break after he launched 4snaps which generated several million downloads. According to an interview by Pando, He said that he learned programming and coding all by himself using tutorials he saw on the internet. His first app generated some money which helped his family during a recession.

This was Facebook's answer to the growing social media users switching to Snapchat instead of Facebook. Snapchat offers a more personalized and intimate social media experience.  According to The Verge, Instagram, which is also owned by Facebook, launched Instagram stories to compete with Snapchat. Snapchat is the leading social media in generating ad revenue in mobiles. Since most people use social media on their mobile smart phones, Snapchat poses a big threat to Facebook's ad revenue.