Adults Only
A major impetus for the founding of Fuego Nation was the feeling that in using social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Bebo that I was an outsider trying to use the tools and devices of youth on the Internet. Virtually all of the major social networking sites left me feeling like I was searching for a paperclip in my nephew’s messy dorm room.
There are a couple key reasons why these legacy social networking sites look and feel the way they do. The crux of the rationale is that sites, Facebook is a prime example, are designed by young engineers, themselves still kids, with designs largely defined by their own life experiences and needs. This, coupled with the nature of technology early adoption being a youthful endeavor, has led to a preponderance of these tools being geared toward youth and not toward the discerning tastes and unique needs of adults.
But the market for social networking has moved far beyond the confines of schoolyards and dorm rooms. The fastest growth area on Facebook is among 25-35 year old adults, a segment that has seen 181% growth in less than one year. Ultimately, it is interest from this segment that has exploded consumer awareness of social networking beyond the previous confines of the youth market and gained the interest of brand advertisers, large and small. Recent growth trends with MySpace follow similar demographic trending.
Having said that, we anticipate a flattening in both demand and usage among adults currently using utilities like Facebook as the novelty of social networking as a concept wears thin and the utility value on sites originally designed for youth proves vacuous. We also believe that the overwhelming number of, and juvenile nature of, Facebook’s application program will continue to chase away adults from the site. While recently added privacy controls do provide some salve to the psychic wounds suffered by adult users, they will prove out to be band-aids to an inherently flawed experience.
The reality is that the social needs of kids and adults are so widely disparate that no plausible, easily understood and intuited system can peaceably coexist. Adults have very specific needs that have not been addresses by the market. They have more disposable income, but less free time. They are more willing to pay for a better controlled experience that helps them gather the information they need quickly and efficiently. They want a well-lit place for interaction not a messy dorm room when visiting another user’s profile. And perhaps more than anything, they want an experience that offers a simple, intuitive interface as busy adults have little time or patience for learning new technologies. Adults have jobs to go do, kids to get ready for school and mortgages to pay. Time is of the essence and value must be derived from each minute expended.
Send an adult to MySpace for the first time and they will be instantly repelled. Why? Because the UI is so complex, confusing and non-intuitive that user friction becomes volcanic. If an adult first time user is actually able to create a simple profile (no small task indeed), they’ll probably have received a pornographic valentine before logging off. The product experience, itself, is just not acceptable to a discerning adult mentality.
In contrast to MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, Fuego Nation restricts its member base to those 21 years or older. From the outset we have remained steadfast that every feature, every design component and every value proposition should be targeted toward satisfying the digital socialization needs of busy, high-energy adults. We’ve done this because we believe the best market opportunity in social networking is that targeted at adults not kids and, secondly, an ‘adults only’ approach creates greater revenue monetization opportunities than do the frameworks of current, non-exclusive networks.
