Facebook's no longer down with the kids

While Facebook has always had its detractors, anecdotal evidence points to a recent surge driven by younger demos towards navigating away from Facebook and finding a new social medium in which to interact with friends and document their lives. The main reasons for this active search for the next social medium in most cases comes down to issues around Facebook's privacy and the steps the platform has taken away from its original simple design.

Once troubled by a clear skew towards teenagers,  Facebook now has over 1 billion users worldwide and appears to have shaken its 'cool' persona in the process of such growth. Along with this growth a number of changes to privacy have irked the public, such as providing brand pages with personal data and turning users into marketing tools to endorse their brand. In addition to privacy issues, Facebook has changed its look and feel so much that many tweens and teenagers have begun searching for a more simple, straight-forward solution.

Leading the charge for a new social medium to represent teenagers is Instagram. Initially dismissed as just an app in which to catalogue photos, it was the younger audiences that first recognised Instagram as a social platform. Utilising the tried and tested formula of gaining 'likes' (which most demographics, let alone teenagers find addictive), Instagram provides a simplistic environment in which to interact with friends, strangers and celebrities. With 100 million users, Instagram has a swelling user base.  

Other social mediums receiving a lot of buzz at the moment are still in the early stages of their existence to be considered an immediate threat to Facebook's throne for the teenager demographic.

Vine launched at the beginning of this year to little fanfare and there saw a ground swell of excitement. Taking pre-existing technology and presenting it with an interesting new take, Vine fosters creative competition through creating users vying for the most engaging six seconds of video. It's appeal over Instagram can be summarised by the following gif:

     Pheed is another social platform receiving strong interest from teenagers. Launched late last year, Pheed allows users to share text, photos, video and audio (sounds like a slight extension on Facebook doesn't it?). With the user base made predominantly by 14 - 25 year olds (81%) and a landing page (as seen in the image above) that is clearly targeted towards younger demographics, Pheed is already being predicted as the next social craze.

Another thing that Vine and Pheed have over Facebook? They are both still fairly underground - a sure-fire way to attract teenagers.

- Luke