Facebook wants to reclaim youth with a new video application – Le Figaro

The social network launches an application reserved for Under 21, “Lifestage”. Facebook does not hesitate to copy Snapchat to attract teenagers.

Facebook wants to regain youth, even copy the competition. The social network has launched a new application called “Lifestage”. This is a mini social network for under 21. Available on iOS, it is currently limited to the US market. Lifestage enables users to create short videos to express what they like and what they dislike, or simply show what they do. Registration for Lifestage does not require a Facebook account.

Lifestage, Facebook seems to want to reproduce what has made it successful in its early days, in the days when he was a community platform from Harvard University. The social network has entrusted the development of the application to Michael Sayman, 19, a product manager at Facebook. To use Lifestage, it is necessary to indicate which school is registered. A school is visible as soon as 20 members are listed there. Users have access to all the videos created by other students at their school as well as students from neighboring schools. All videos are made public: there are no privacy settings. Users can still point out the profiles of adults posing as students.

Facebook wants to keep young surfers in her lap. The social network first known popularity with students before expanding to all generations. Since then, Facebook has lost its image “cool”, but not its young users. According to comScore, nearly 100% of US Internet users between 18 and 34 use Facebook every month, against 40% for Snapchat. It nevertheless experiencing exponential growth and influence of many sites. . Facebook had tried to buy the application in 2013, without success

After this failure, Facebook has chosen a different strategy: copy recipes Snapchat. End of 2012, the social network launched Poke, an application for sending ephemeral messages to his friends how to Snapchat. Without success, Facebook Poke was terminated in May 2014 to immediately inaugurate Slingshot, a photo sharing application. Another failure. It was removed a few months later

The latest example, the application Instagram photos, property of Facebook, launched this month its “stories”, openly inspired Snapchat . This feature allows to publish photos and videos that self-destruct after 24 hours.