Facebook’s Lifestage App is a Teen-Only Video-Centric Social Network

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Facebook has been constantly trying to capture the Snapchat generation with attempts like Instagram Stories and live filters.

The social network is at it again with a new standalone, video-centric social app for teens called Lifestage. To be able to complete your profile, you’d have to take videos and selfies of your likes, dislikes, and facial expressions. The app will also ask you to take videos of your BFFs, to burst out dancing on camera, take photos of your dessert and so on.

When we say that the app is for teens, its because Facebook will not allow you to see other people’s profiles if you’re older than 22. That’s assuming you won’t creepily pretend to be younger than you actually are. This is an important reminder that the pictures and photos you share on Facebook, Snapchat, or any other social platform are not private, and neither is anything you do on the internet.

The app takes things a step further because it only shows you profiles of other kids going to your school and other ones nearby. In addition, the app will only unlock profiles from your school if over 20 students sign up.

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Only time will tell whether or not the new social network catches on. Lifestage was created by 19-year-old Facebook employee Michael Sayman, who’s been with Facebook since he got out of high school. He’s been making apps since he was 13 years old, and Mark Zuckerberg personally invited him to join his team. Sayman says his app “looks back at the days of Facebook from 2004 and explores what can be done if we went back and turned the crank all the way forward to 2016 with video-first.” That certainly aligns with Zuckerberg’s plan to transition his website into a more video-centric network.

Facebook Lifestage is available as a free download from the App Store. The app requires any device running iOS 8.0 or later and seems to only be available in the U.S. store for now. There is still no word when the app will launch for Android.

[via TechCrunch]

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