Noplace, a Twitter-MySpace hybrid for Gen Z, tops the App Store

Aiming to bring the “social” back to “social media,” a new app called Nowhere Noplace has soared to the top of the App Store after its launch last Wednesday. Designed to appeal to a younger audience — or anyone who wants to connect with friends or over shared interests — it’s like a modern-day MySpace with colorful, customizable profiles that let people share everything from their relationship status, to what they’re listening to or watching, reading or doing, and more.

It bodes well for its potential in the often tough social consumer market, Nowhere The app went viral before it was even released to the public because of its feature that allowed users to express themselves by customizing their profile colors. While Gen Z may not have grown up with MySpace and all the messy customization it offered, there’s still a sense of nostalgia for a social networking experience they never had.

“I think some of the magic and fun aspect of the internet has gone away now. Everything has become so standardized,” says the founder and CEO. Tiffany Chungwhich previously founded its own early-stage consumer fund, Pineapple Capital, and, In adolescence, I worked at Binary Capital, where I helped them get early stage consumer deals.

Having played with every consumer-facing social media app over the past decade, Chung has a keen eye for the next big thing. She referred to Musical.ly in 2015 as the next Snapchat or Twitter, for example, after realizing its appeal among kids and other younger users.

she also Often tweeted With her insights and product analysis, especially around consumer apps, Zong has gained a large following on social media. Given her background, it’s no surprise that Zong has cutting-edge ideas about what might appeal to today’s younger social media users.

“I’ve always loved social media,” she says, but adds that social media doesn’t feel social anymore. “It’s all just media. I feel completely disconnected.”

That’s partly because all the content we serve now is so personalized, the founder says. “We watch different content and consume it everywhere.” [following] “We have different interests than our friends, so it becomes difficult to find community.”

With noplace, the idea is to provide a place where people can follow their friends as well as find other people who share their interests in one place.

The app offers a small, customizable profile where users can share what they’re currently doing and customize it to reflect their interests. User profiles can have tags, called “stars” by the app, that are interests or topics they’re interested in. For example, users might add their astrology sign, their Myers-Briggs personality type, their hobbies, or their crushes to their profiles, making them discoverable to others. The app even has a “Top 10 Friends” section, reminiscent of MySpace’s Top 8 Friends section.

But Noplace is more like a global group chat or Twitter/X competitor than a Facebook alternative, focusing on text updates and not supporting images or videos at the moment.

“Facebook ten years ago — or when I was on it in middle school — was a great life-update site,” says Chung. “We don’t realize that anymore, do we? You can follow along.” [friends] On Instagram, but it still has highlights, and fewer updates.

As with noplace, users are supposed to share what they’re currently doing, not what they’ve already done. If you’re in a new city, watching a show, or listening to a new band, that could be your status update. The app offers two feeds, one for your friends and one global feed from everyone on the app, both in reverse chronological order. There are no private profiles.

People under 18 will also get a more moderate feed. The company is focused on moderation, building its own internal dashboard for this purpose, and is hiring a team to ensure user safety.

Instead of algorithms, noplace uses AI to guide suggestions and curation. The app doesn’t edit your feed for you, but rather uses AI to do things like provide summaries of what you missed.

“We did it intentionally… Having a global, public feed is what makes it so fun. It’s like everyone’s mind on paper,” Chung notes. “People have a lot of fun. They say, ‘I’ve never had an app like this before.’”

The Tokyo- and San Francisco-based founder first started working on noplace in the latter half of last year with a full-time team of seven distributed remotely. Late last year, noplace launched an invite-only beta and “accidentally went viral,” Chung says, prompting the team to distribute some invite codes to early adopters, including some K-pop fans.

The app is now expected to offer younger Twitter users an alternative to the network now known as X under Elon Musk, offering the same ability to post to a text feed, but combining that with friend-finding features and customization options that suit their demographics.

The application is Free Download on iOS It is available in read-only mode on the web. Monetization plans have not yet been implemented.

Noplace is backed by investors including 776 (Alexis Ohanian), Forerunner Ventures and others. According to PitchBook data, the company raised $15 million in a Seris A1 round, at a pre-funding valuation of $75 million, bringing its total raised to more than $19 million.