Mashable
Social Media
Poor Facebook: The teenagers, they’re not so into it.
The world’s largest social network was "big" and "made sense" circa two thousand four or 2005, according to Monkey cofounder Isaiah Turner, but no longer. He and Ben Pasternak, eighteen and seventeen respectively, have launched a fresh social network — one they believe the teenagers will actually want.
Monkey is an iOS app for people who have friends, and then they have "internet friends." It’s a way to find more of the latter, the pair say, rather than connecting with people from school or your neighbourhood. Albeit, like every other app out there, Monkey still wants to mine your phone’s contacts.
Reminiscent of Omegle or Chatroulette, the app connects random users for a set period of time. For now, it sends you to Snapchat if you want to stay in touch, but will shortly add in-app talk as well as extra discovery features with filters based on age, gender, location and hashtags.
"The way I look at it is Snapchat’s for your real-life friends and Monkey is for your internet friends," Pasternak told Mashable.
Turner and Pasternak were themselves internet friends very first — they met in online hacker communities when Pasternak was still in Sydney, Australia and Turner lived in southern Maryland — so they get the appeal.
"I have groups of internet friends all over: I have people that I’ve connected with through YouTube . I have another group of people from doing technology stuff," Turner said.
For him, internet friends have a specific type of charm. "If you say something to a friend in real-life, that carries over — you’re going to have rumours and drama," he explained. "Whereas on the internet, that person may have no ties to your other friends, so you can tell them things you wouldn’t tell your friends at school."
"With internet friends, you can be whoever you want to be, and I think Monkey is indeed pushing that," Pasternak added.
How many internet friends are made on Monkey remains to be seen. The app has reached 215,000 users in about five weeks, Pasternak claims, and as of Jan. 16, it’s sitting at twenty five in the top social networking apps in the App Store.
Ben Pasternak and Isaiah Turner.
At 17, Pasternak is something of a veteran developer. He very first attracted notice in two thousand fifteen after creating a popular iPhone game, and more recently, he dropped out of school, moved to Fresh York and launched a teenage e-commerce app, Flogg. For now, Turner is sleeping on Pasternak’s couch.
If Pasternak has any qualms about the fate of Flogg, he doesn’t share it. While it hasn’t closed down, he’s "paused on it" for the moment. "There wasn’t a clear vision," he said. "[Monkey] blew up unexpectedly, so the most logical thing to do is concentrate my time on it right now."
Turner, for his part, isn’t bothered. "I don’t know about Flogg, but not everything becomes the next Facebook."
While they want to be seen as legitimate developers and not just teenage whiz kids, the pair think it’s their youth that will make Monkey succeed.
"One of the big problems is that all the apps out right now are built by a bunch of adults," Turner said. "We are both the creators of the project and the end user, which isn’t truly the case with things like Snapchat."
Pasternak said the average age on Monkey is 17, and they don’t pair adults and minors, albeit the app’s ordinary signup process makes it very effortless to fake your age. "I feel like it’s an underground world to adults," he said.
While Chatroutlette was well known for serving up sexual content, Pasternak claims Monkey is so far "an enormously clean community." The pair have a public Snapchat that users can contact to make the founders aware of any problems.
"We use our Snapchat as the only social media for connecting with our users," Turner said. "So if we have a question, we just post it on Snapchat and hear from our users right away."
The founders are realistic about how hard it will be to become a regular fixture for their fickle audience. Pasternak said Monkey has mostly spread via word of mouth, while acknowledging a puny influencer thrust — "I’m talking about a duo of hundred dollars" — that earned them a few thousand users.
"It was indeed just to reach critical mass. When it very first came out, obviously if you download the app and no one’s on it, it’s a pretty underwhelming app," he said.
Either way, they’re clear: Monkey is not for olds.
"Say you’re building a house. If you tell an adult to build a joy house, they’re going to throw like a hot bath in there," Turner explained. "And if you tell a kid to build a house, they’re going to put in, like, a waterslide and jet skis."
Leave behind Facebook, leave behind Snapchat: Teenagers are doing it themselves
Mashable
Social Media
Poor Facebook: The teenagers, they’re not so into it.
The world’s largest social network was "big" and "made sense" circa two thousand four or 2005, according to Monkey cofounder Isaiah Turner, but no longer. He and Ben Pasternak, eighteen and seventeen respectively, have launched a fresh social network — one they believe the teenagers will actually want.
Monkey is an iOS app for people who have friends, and then they have "internet friends." It’s a way to find more of the latter, the pair say, rather than connecting with people from school or your neighbourhood. Albeit, like every other app out there, Monkey still wants to mine your phone’s contacts.
Reminiscent of Omegle or Chatroulette, the app connects random users for a set period of time. For now, it sends you to Snapchat if you want to stay in touch, but will shortly add in-app talk as well as extra discovery features with filters based on age, gender, location and hashtags.
"The way I look at it is Snapchat’s for your real-life friends and Monkey is for your internet friends," Pasternak told Mashable.
Turner and Pasternak were themselves internet friends very first — they met in online hacker communities when Pasternak was still in Sydney, Australia and Turner lived in southern Maryland — so they get the appeal.
"I have groups of internet friends all over: I have people that I’ve connected with through YouTube . I have another group of people from doing technology stuff," Turner said.
For him, internet friends have a specific type of charm. "If you say something to a friend in real-life, that carries over — you’re going to have rumours and drama," he explained. "Whereas on the internet, that person may have no ties to your other friends, so you can tell them things you wouldn’t tell your friends at school."
"With internet friends, you can be whoever you want to be, and I think Monkey is indeed pushing that," Pasternak added.
How many internet friends are made on Monkey remains to be seen. The app has reached 215,000 users in about five weeks, Pasternak claims, and as of Jan. 16, it’s sitting at twenty five in the top social networking apps in the App Store.
Ben Pasternak and Isaiah Turner.
At 17, Pasternak is something of a veteran developer. He very first attracted notice in two thousand fifteen after creating a popular iPhone game, and more recently, he dropped out of school, moved to Fresh York and launched a teenage e-commerce app, Flogg. For now, Turner is sleeping on Pasternak’s couch.
If Pasternak has any qualms about the fate of Flogg, he doesn’t share it. While it hasn’t closed down, he’s "paused on it" for the moment. "There wasn’t a clear vision," he said. "[Monkey] blew up unexpectedly, so the most logical thing to do is concentrate my time on it right now."
Turner, for his part, isn’t bothered. "I don’t know about Flogg, but not everything becomes the next Facebook."
While they want to be seen as legitimate developers and not just teenage whiz kids, the pair think it’s their youth that will make Monkey succeed.
"One of the big problems is that all the apps out right now are built by a bunch of adults," Turner said. "We are both the creators of the project and the end user, which isn’t indeed the case with things like Snapchat."
Pasternak said the average age on Monkey is 17, and they don’t pair adults and minors, albeit the app’s elementary signup process makes it very effortless to fake your age. "I feel like it’s an underground world to adults," he said.
While Chatroutlette was legendary for serving up sexual content, Pasternak claims Monkey is so far "an enormously clean community." The pair have a public Snapchat that users can contact to make the founders aware of any problems.
"We use our Snapchat as the only social media for connecting with our users," Turner said. "So if we have a question, we just post it on Snapchat and hear from our users right away."
The founders are realistic about how hard it will be to become a regular fixture for their fickle audience. Pasternak said Monkey has mostly spread via word of mouth, while acknowledging a petite influencer shove — "I’m talking about a duo of hundred dollars" — that earned them a few thousand users.
"It was indeed just to reach critical mass. When it very first came out, obviously if you download the app and no one’s on it, it’s a pretty underwhelming app," he said.
Either way, they’re clear: Monkey is not for olds.
"Say you’re building a house. If you tell an adult to build a joy house, they’re going to throw like a hot bath in there," Turner explained. "And if you tell a kid to build a house, they’re going to put in, like, a waterslide and jet skis."
Leave behind Facebook, leave behind Snapchat: Teenagers are doing it themselves
Mashable
Social Media
Poor Facebook: The teenagers, they’re not so into it.
The world’s largest social network was "big" and "made sense" circa two thousand four or 2005, according to Monkey cofounder Isaiah Turner, but no longer. He and Ben Pasternak, eighteen and seventeen respectively, have launched a fresh social network — one they believe the teenagers will actually want.
Monkey is an iOS app for people who have friends, and then they have "internet friends." It’s a way to find more of the latter, the pair say, rather than connecting with people from school or your neighbourhood. Albeit, like every other app out there, Monkey still wants to mine your phone’s contacts.
Reminiscent of Omegle or Chatroulette, the app connects random users for a set period of time. For now, it sends you to Snapchat if you want to stay in touch, but will shortly add in-app talk as well as extra discovery features with filters based on age, gender, location and hashtags.
"The way I look at it is Snapchat’s for your real-life friends and Monkey is for your internet friends," Pasternak told Mashable.
Turner and Pasternak were themselves internet friends very first — they met in online hacker communities when Pasternak was still in Sydney, Australia and Turner lived in southern Maryland — so they get the appeal.
"I have groups of internet friends all over: I have people that I’ve connected with through YouTube . I have another group of people from doing technology stuff," Turner said.
For him, internet friends have a specific type of charm. "If you say something to a friend in real-life, that carries over — you’re going to have rumours and drama," he explained. "Whereas on the internet, that person may have no ties to your other friends, so you can tell them things you wouldn’t tell your friends at school."
"With internet friends, you can be whoever you want to be, and I think Monkey is indeed pushing that," Pasternak added.
How many internet friends are made on Monkey remains to be seen. The app has reached 215,000 users in about five weeks, Pasternak claims, and as of Jan. 16, it’s sitting at twenty five in the top social networking apps in the App Store.
Ben Pasternak and Isaiah Turner.
At 17, Pasternak is something of a veteran developer. He very first attracted notice in two thousand fifteen after creating a popular iPhone game, and more recently, he dropped out of school, moved to Fresh York and launched a teenage e-commerce app, Flogg. For now, Turner is sleeping on Pasternak’s couch.
If Pasternak has any qualms about the fate of Flogg, he doesn’t share it. While it hasn’t closed down, he’s "paused on it" for the moment. "There wasn’t a clear vision," he said. "[Monkey] blew up unexpectedly, so the most logical thing to do is concentrate my time on it right now."
Turner, for his part, isn’t bothered. "I don’t know about Flogg, but not everything becomes the next Facebook."
While they want to be seen as legitimate developers and not just teenage whiz kids, the pair think it’s their youth that will make Monkey succeed.
"One of the big problems is that all the apps out right now are built by a bunch of adults," Turner said. "We are both the creators of the project and the end user, which isn’t truly the case with things like Snapchat."
Pasternak said the average age on Monkey is 17, and they don’t pair adults and minors, albeit the app’s ordinary signup process makes it very effortless to fake your age. "I feel like it’s an underground world to adults," he said.
While Chatroutlette was famous for serving up sexual content, Pasternak claims Monkey is so far "an enormously clean community." The pair have a public Snapchat that users can contact to make the founders aware of any problems.
"We use our Snapchat as the only social media for connecting with our users," Turner said. "So if we have a question, we just post it on Snapchat and hear from our users right away."
The founders are realistic about how hard it will be to become a regular fixture for their fickle audience. Pasternak said Monkey has mostly spread via word of mouth, while acknowledging a puny influencer shove — "I’m talking about a duo of hundred dollars" — that earned them a few thousand users.
"It was indeed just to reach critical mass. When it very first came out, obviously if you download the app and no one’s on it, it’s a pretty underwhelming app," he said.
Either way, they’re clear: Monkey is not for olds.
"Say you’re building a house. If you tell an adult to build a joy house, they’re going to throw like a hot bath in there," Turner explained. "And if you tell a kid to build a house, they’re going to put in, like, a waterslide and jet skis."
Leave behind Facebook, leave behind Snapchat: Teenagers are doing it themselves
Mashable
Social Media
Poor Facebook: The teenagers, they’re not so into it.
The world’s largest social network was "big" and "made sense" circa two thousand four or 2005, according to Monkey cofounder Isaiah Turner, but no longer. He and Ben Pasternak, eighteen and seventeen respectively, have launched a fresh social network — one they believe the teenagers will actually want.
Monkey is an iOS app for people who have friends, and then they have "internet friends." It’s a way to find more of the latter, the pair say, rather than connecting with people from school or your neighbourhood. Albeit, like every other app out there, Monkey still wants to mine your phone’s contacts.
Reminiscent of Omegle or Chatroulette, the app connects random users for a set period of time. For now, it sends you to Snapchat if you want to stay in touch, but will shortly add in-app talk as well as extra discovery features with filters based on age, gender, location and hashtags.
"The way I look at it is Snapchat’s for your real-life friends and Monkey is for your internet friends," Pasternak told Mashable.
Turner and Pasternak were themselves internet friends very first — they met in online hacker communities when Pasternak was still in Sydney, Australia and Turner lived in southern Maryland — so they get the appeal.
"I have groups of internet friends all over: I have people that I’ve connected with through YouTube . I have another group of people from doing technology stuff," Turner said.
For him, internet friends have a specific type of charm. "If you say something to a friend in real-life, that carries over — you’re going to have rumours and drama," he explained. "Whereas on the internet, that person may have no ties to your other friends, so you can tell them things you wouldn’t tell your friends at school."
"With internet friends, you can be whoever you want to be, and I think Monkey is truly pushing that," Pasternak added.
How many internet friends are made on Monkey remains to be seen. The app has reached 215,000 users in about five weeks, Pasternak claims, and as of Jan. 16, it’s sitting at twenty five in the top social networking apps in the App Store.
Ben Pasternak and Isaiah Turner.
At 17, Pasternak is something of a veteran developer. He very first attracted notice in two thousand fifteen after creating a popular iPhone game, and more recently, he dropped out of school, moved to Fresh York and launched a teenage e-commerce app, Flogg. For now, Turner is sleeping on Pasternak’s couch.
If Pasternak has any qualms about the fate of Flogg, he doesn’t share it. While it hasn’t closed down, he’s "paused on it" for the moment. "There wasn’t a clear vision," he said. "[Monkey] blew up unexpectedly, so the most logical thing to do is concentrate my time on it right now."
Turner, for his part, isn’t bothered. "I don’t know about Flogg, but not everything becomes the next Facebook."
While they want to be seen as legitimate developers and not just teenage whiz kids, the pair think it’s their youth that will make Monkey succeed.
"One of the big problems is that all the apps out right now are built by a bunch of adults," Turner said. "We are both the creators of the project and the end user, which isn’t indeed the case with things like Snapchat."
Pasternak said the average age on Monkey is 17, and they don’t pair adults and minors, albeit the app’s elementary signup process makes it very effortless to fake your age. "I feel like it’s an underground world to adults," he said.
While Chatroutlette was legendary for serving up sexual content, Pasternak claims Monkey is so far "an enormously clean community." The pair have a public Snapchat that users can contact to make the founders aware of any problems.
"We use our Snapchat as the only social media for connecting with our users," Turner said. "So if we have a question, we just post it on Snapchat and hear from our users right away."
The founders are realistic about how hard it will be to become a regular fixture for their fickle audience. Pasternak said Monkey has mostly spread via word of mouth, while acknowledging a petite influencer thrust — "I’m talking about a duo of hundred dollars" — that earned them a few thousand users.
"It was indeed just to reach critical mass. When it very first came out, obviously if you download the app and no one’s on it, it’s a pretty underwhelming app," he said.
Either way, they’re clear: Monkey is not for olds.
"Say you’re building a house. If you tell an adult to build a joy house, they’re going to throw like a hot bath in there," Turner explained. "And if you tell a kid to build a house, they’re going to put in, like, a waterslide and jet skis."