Aug/08©Chris Farley
Teens in Tech – Good Team, Bad Product
Teens in Tech's Launch Marred by Technical Issues
Teens in Tech, the new startup purportedly creating a community for teens interested in creating new media, not-launch launched into private alpha yesterday. After a TechCrunch review yesterday, the group has been widely panned.
Critics point to the lack of innovation on the part of the company. It uses a standard Wordpress MU installation and has already shown a surprising lack of foresight. A review on TechCrunch generates huge site traffic and server load, but Teens in Tech (I’ll spell out the name to avoid the acronym – not the best marketing choice) was using DreamHost, a service clearly not designed for reliability. The people at Teens in Tech bit the bullet and switched to a more reliable host, but only after leaving the front page down for most of the all-important launch day.
But still, I don’t think the technicalities are critical. Being crashed by TechCrunch is almost a rite of passage for startups, but Teens in Tech should have at least attempted to plan. My concern lies with the theory behind the company. Even if the launch has been smooth and Teens in Tech used the best custom backend in the world, the service would still fail because it is pursuing a flawed (if existent) business plan. While the teen market is huge on the Internet, the number of teens who are willing to create new media is very small. From a business perspective, targeting such an infinitessimal market segment isn’t at all profitable. Opening up to everyone would defeat the purpose of beging a teen company and place the group the group in direct competition with more established foes, like Mevio.
In fact, one of only a few things Teens in Tech has going for them is the design. Sean Blake did an excellent job at creating a professional design to complement the content. But as professional as the site looks, I’m not sure how professional it actually is.
The company is not incorporated and much of the company’s future plans remain “in discussion.” Oddly, Teens in Tech is generating an inordinate amount of hype for a service launching into private alpha. I question the wisdom of launching so early, given the technical issues, lack of innovation, and lack of clear direction. While Teens in Tech has the profit potential of a lemonade stand on a deserted road, a few conversations with the Teens in Tech team lead me to believe that the company isn’t going after profit. They seem undecided at the moment, but some sort of charity-type, donation-based organization might be in the works.
For the most part, the criticism of Teens in Tech is well-deserved. They launched too early, with no real innovation, haunted by technical difficulties. It was just not thought through. It is, as of now, all hype and no product. But I won’t tolerate the people who say Teens in Tech is only popular in the media because of who Daniel, the founder, knows and because of his location (Daniel is based in Silicon Valley). Perhaps this has some merit in that Daniel has more access to those who matter, but the people who matter wouldn’t care about Daniel if he was just an ordinary person. Daniel obviously has something going for him that’s impressing the likes of Robert Scoble and others.
My primary concern is that Teens in Tech will harm the teen community as a whole on the Internet. As teens, we have a certain disadvantage because we are not viewed as equals. But we can’t expect to be treated specially because we’re young, either. If teens want to be as successful as adults, then they need to be as good as adults. Age is no excuse for a less-than-fantastic product.
I have nothing against Daniel or the Teens in Tech team, but I want them to use their efforts for something else. I want them to do something really great, but I’m not quite sure what. Daniel would do it well, I’m sure, but more importantly, if he and his team pulled it off, it would be a major advancement for teens. So my advice to Daniel is to close up shop on Teens in Tech and move on to something more worthy of his efforts. Teens in Tech is just not going to gain the audience it needs to be a successful business.