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The Young Firms Rethinking Social Media

Social media has long been dominated by a few companies, led by Facebook. But a number of social-networking startups have emerged on the scene that hope to gain traction by focusing on how young people like to communicate.

The Young Firms Rethinking Social Media

Social media has long been dominated by a few companies, led by Facebook. But a number of social-networking startups have emerged on the scene that hope to gain traction by focusing on how young people like to communicate.

Illustration by Danielle Davis

Alex Heath

Oct. 16, 2019 7:01 AM PDT

The world of social media is dominated by companies like Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, but that hasn’t stopped a new breed of startups from trying to carve out markets where they think the sector’s giants have fallen short.

These emerging social media firms, four of which we profile below in our latest installment of Startups to Watch, include a business recently launched by two former Facebook employees and another that is capitalizing on the rising trend of wireless headphones. While these founders know they face long odds jumping into a market where a few players command most of the attention, they all are aiming to establish themselves by emphasizing features that might attract younger users.