Teenager Websites

What Makes a Hit Teenager Website

While past generations of teens found entertainment hanging out at the mall or playing video games, today’s adolescents find everything from amusement to serious relationships all in their personal computer. The Internet has birthed a culture so unlike any other. It has given us the ability to be connected to each other round the clock; a life dynamic that would have been incomprehensible 30 years ago.

With that being said, various websites are cashing in on the Web phenomenon, designing their products to appeal to teens using the latest and greatest technology. Some have suggested these sites can be divided into three categories: social, commercial, and personal. All three genres have hit the jackpot in the teenager website market. Below are just a few examples of each.

Social Websites

Social networking websites hit the scene in 2002 when a little site called Friendster got its start in Mountain View, CA. Designed by a programmer with the vision to link together real-life friends and family members on the Internet, it became an instant hit growing to over 48 million users.

Unfortunately, 48 million is a small number compared to the competitive giants that came along shortly after, making Friendster an all but forgotten site.

Myspace

Deemed the 6th most popular website in the world and truly tops in teenager websites when it comes to social networking, Myspace took Friendster’s idea, improved upon it, and quickly turned it into a mega-hit.

Getting a Myspace account is free, and users are able to design their main profile page with a myriad of backgrounds, images, songs, and video files. “Friends” are achieved through searching and adding either those you know in real life or those you wish to. They are able to leave comments on your page for all to see, send you private messages, or invite you to special events that take you away from the imaginary social scene and back to face-to-face interaction.

Myspace in the past has been criticized for its safety issues including hackers and sexual predators taking advantage of the site’s low security. However, it has remained a top networking site and shows no signs of slowing down. Most teenagers have a Myspace account, and the site has become so popular that many schools have blocked it from their computer labs.

Facebook

It has been joked that while Myspace is for the pretty people, Facebook is for the smart ones. This is apparent when you see its simple, no-frills interface. Working quite similarly to Myspace, Facebook was originally designed for college students but has garnered a newfound popularity with high schoolers.

While also a networking site, Facebook has endless applications that can be added to spice up your page with options including virtual fortune cookies, daily bible verses, and an ongoing cyber-war between pirates and ninjas. Users can throw virtual chickens at friends and can even leave a computer-generated bouquet of flowers on the page of that special someone.

Facebook has begun to reign supreme within the teen demographic for its creative alternatives to Myspace. Teens have also found adults know much less about Facebook, meaning they can, to parents’ chagrin, get away with much more.

Commercial Websites

Can’t get enough of celebrity smut and Internet gossip? Well neither can your teenager according to popular commercial sites receiving countless hits a day from 12-18 year olds.

Perez Hilton

It’s not only Perez Hilton’s name that parodies a famous celebrity, as his site takes countless jabs at tinsel town each and every day. From famous photos to a long pattern of Britney-bashing, Perez has gotten teens’ attention. His website, while not necessarily designed to be in the genre of teenager websites, can’t help but attract them with its hot pink décor and image rich celebrity slander. Regarding their own future, teenage girls often have stars in their eyes, and getting to live vicariously through the unstable lives of current big names on Perez’s site is an excellent consolation prize.

The Smoking Gun

Those who once read young adult mysteries in junior high have grown into teenage fans of The Smoking Gun, a sleuth site that regularly publishes legal documents of those in the limelight. From divorce papers to special hotel room requests of rock bands, chances are The Smoking Gun has it.

Teens get a kick out of surfing for Lindsay Lohan’s mug shot and other documents the stars themselves would be mortified to find on the Internet. The Smoking Gun has virtually no competitors as they continue to get the goods first, while the teenage population beefs up their hit counter on a daily basis.

Personal Websites

Every young person can be a famous writer or a political commentator thanks to the world of web logging. Blogs are not a new trend, however they have remained a consistent one thanks to the appealing idea of having a world showcase in which to speak your mind.

Livejournal

Livejournal is one of the oldest blogging services around, and remains free to all users. If a teen wishes to upgrade their site for more feature options, they can for a minimal cost of around $3.00 per month.

Posting on Livejournal allows for a large selection of templates and user pictures to make your blog unique and eye catching. Users can add others to a friends list, making it possible to see all recent journal entries from other chosen users on a single page.

Adults use Livejournal to update loved ones on life’s news, but teenagers have taken the site to a new level adding fan communities of various interest, graphic design contests, and countless other ways to express themselves in a unique and web-based way.

Angelfire

Angelfire is one of the easiest website building clients available, making it immensely popular with teenagers. While most teens are HTML savvy by college, young high-schoolers love the way they are able to build an impressive-looking website without having to know a lot of code.

The results are apparent all over the Web, as these kids have made their own Internet kingdoms through the magic of Angelfire.

Photo hosting sites such as Flickr, fashion advice channels such as CosmoGirl, and sites devoted to popular characters such as Harry Potter and the cast of The Office are also at the height of popularity in cyberspace.

Teenager websites find success when they combine originality, appealing design, and a little bit of sass that any adolescent can relate to.