myYearbook, a social network for teenagers that launched in 2005, has raised $13 million in a Series B funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners, US Venture Partners, and First Round Capital. The new round brings the company’s total funding to $18.6 million.
myYearbook says it sees 10 million unique visitors monthly, and also makes the claim that it is the third largest social network in the US. (Not quite. It is only a fraction of the size of MySpace or Facebook, and Bebo and imeem also attract more monthly unique visitors. According to comScore, myYearbook had 4.5 million unique visitors in June, versus 5.2 million for Bebo and 6.4 million for imeem). When we last wrote about them, there was speculation that the site may have more high school users than Facebook. This is almost certainly no longer the case. Facebook has seen dramatic growth since that time, with 37.4 million uniques in June, with 10 percent of those between the ages of 12 and 17, says comScore. MyYearbook has a larger percentage of users in that age group (23.8 percent), but less than a third as many total.
Still, myYearbook continues to produce impressive stats if you look at Hitwise, with 384% in year-over-year growth.
The site intends to use the money to further expand its feature set and reach out to new members. As part of the deal, Norwest Venture Partners’ Sergio Monsalve will join the company’s board of directors.
College students graduate and stay on facebook, and bring more adult users to the site. But high school students will go onto facebook after they get out of high school, and never look back. That makes me feel they have a problem keeping users, wonder how they grow and expand to new members.
Ideally, though, this service will help prevent a mixture of adults and teens, as is strong at Myspace (it’s frustrating to be in a social network full of children). It would be nice to keep the Facebook crowd filled only with those mature enough at least go to university or have a career. Ahh, an ideal world -
One of the most embarrassing thing is that you will find this written in the end of “myyearbook” website… “Copyright © 2007 myYearbook ”
Maybe the founders forgot that it is 2008 instead of 2007.
LMAO dude has anyone ever told you the copyright is for they year they started up. Not the current year LOL
college students are gonna grow up from facebook and look for a more mature social location, and never look back. anyways no one goes to a social site such as facebook or myspace to buy stuff. page views may be high but conversions are virtually zilch. myyearbook is a niche site and there is enough room for them to fit in, its just no where near the top of the monetization food chain. myyearbook should invest in a multichannel strategic social portfolio. build a network of niche social sites.
Besides Music, Rated G Movies, fashion and acne creme - what is there to market to High Schoolers with limited spending power
I agree, not even Facebook and MySpace - which are targeting a higher spending market - can make money, and this guys will? c’mon no one knows how to make money from social networks.
I’m also worried about a more children-inclined website, which obviously attracts more pedophiles and child molesters.
just check out the site, the stats are pretty impressive. at around 500 on alexa.
Please, please, stop using online stats services (alexa, compete, etc) as a point of reference. We all know these services can be gamed. I looked at their source code and it appears that they are sending stat data to quantcast. These number might be more accurate.
http://www.quantcast.com/p-82MbSinIaQJw2
This is for the loser VCs that don’t have enough pull to join in on the Facebook rounds.
Yah, Josh Kopelman is a real “loser”… get real, Alaska.
Isnt this idea saturated?
Not really, this site really focuses it’s attention on the under-18 crowd.
Obviously the very best demo out there.
Nice elitist comment. Now get back in your registered comment cage.
I didn’t realize that First Round Capital was becoming a late stage investor. Series B? What is this world coming to:)
The first 10 things I read when I viewed this site has to do with sex and who likes who. Will this turn into a porn site? For a clean teen prespective visit http://itsourrealitymagazine.com/teens.htm
Let teens be teens!
Vicky, your site is ugly as hell.
Can’t even imagine any teen wanting to browse it, let alone posting anything there.
(sorry)
thats
http://www.filedownloadfull.com/
why are you posting links which are not at all related to the topic?
Download Free: Games, Movies, Softwares, Musics, Ebooks
http://www.filedownloadfull.com/
Enjoy:
Was this paid content?
Did Teen Social Network pay TechCrunch to post this?
Please respond.
There are many social networking sites out there for everyone now. They will probably start merging if the little ones get bigger..
http://blabtech.blogspot.com
(just kidding)
Didn’t their brother give them 1/4 million to launch the site?
http://tinyurl.com/omfgCANADIAstartups
I think the founders must have been hitting the bong pretty hard when they came up with that logo.
Pointless plug: http://www.imageco.com
You should really just disable any HTML for comments.
Ahh.. yet another social networking site.
Ideally i think there should be sites for specific user base. Wondering how Myyearbook will verify the user’s age whether they are in their teens or not. That will be their biggest challenge otherwise there are lots of social sites available which are even bigger than this one.
Cheers
The real story about myyearbook is about how its a haven for sexual predators. Just do some casual browsing around the forums and you will see hundreds of posts asking for “hook up” pics from boys 14 years or younger.
Their polls section has several sex quizzes with graphic public entries. Its also very common to see much older men hitting on teenage girls and boys in the groups and forums sections.
Of course MYB knows about all this thats why they put those S.A.F.T.E.Y. logos all around the site as if that will cover it up and make it all OK.
MYB is a public relations disaster waiting to happen. It should be shut down not funded.
Tech Crunch if you want a real story why don’t you spend sometime surfing the dating groups.
Well every site has its dangers, that goes w/o say…you can’t have your cake and eat it too
thats true but this site is targeted at children and its overflowing with pedophiles and solicitations for child pornography.
Many colleges/universities are discontinuing actual yearbooks (and blaming MySpace and Facebook for low sales).
If the MyYearbook people are smart, they will iron out the kinks and sell licenses to the educational market.
Theoretically, a jr. high/high school page could migrate from high school to college to alumni association, with controls in place to verify school affiliations, etc.
It has potential; we just need to see if they go for it or become just another Facebook wannabe.
That sounds like a good idea. I’m sure they could offer some sort of hosted option as well if need be. Something to differentiate themselves and hedge their bets is good business.
I think the founders must have been hitting the bong pretty hard when they came up with that logo.
LMAO
It’s like the tag-line is targeted at the loner kids in school that need a self-esteem boost - oh by the way” you’ve got friends!!”
The website in itself is not impressive. Plus the concept is so saturated. They better have an exit strategy any time soon.
that site is sensory overload
it seem more like a teen girl site imho
i would like more proof that those two actually created the site and arent just fronts for the brother and hired programmers
I found this site out a long time ago when I used to use gizoogle.com for entertainment… I wonder if they are affiliated because that same ad has been up there for years
@ KillerLocator.com
I agree with you that a transition from high school to University will happen and users will move, but i disagree on the point of acquiring new users, as there will always be new kids getting into schools and thus will always have new members.
I agree with the above comment. There will always be fresh members joining. There will always be kids which means this site will always have a market. You also have to remember that a lot of social networking sites have deceptive membership numbers to begin with. For example, look at myspace and facebook… they have thousands of accounts that have not been used for several years now.
Where was myyearbook created? i really want to know! im a social network creator,and need to know this!
why do you need to knwo this its retarded and some people are just retared like you
hello my name is Nicole and im 18 and i kinda like myYearbook but i think some of the schools should let us on facebook and all thatr just beacuse most of them use it for a good perpouse and some just use it for a chating a dating thang not me noo im different people see me as a bitch but im not some people dont like me cuz i say whats on my mind and if i dont like you i will tell you to your face and if you dont like it get the fuck over it cuz i dont care who you are or where you came from if i dont like you than dont try to talk to me cuz you might get yelled at..!!>>
I can’t believe all the sites are making so much. How can I get some money for my site.