Aiming to put the “social” back into “social media,” a new app called “noplace” moved out of invite-only mode and rocketed to the top of the App Store on Wednesday. Designed for the younger generation or anyone looking to connect with friends and shared interests, noplace is like a modern-day MySpace, with colorful, customizable profiles where you can share everything from your relationship status to what you're listening to, watching, reading, and doing.
A harbinger of potential in the often-fractious consumer social market, noplace was already generating buzz before its public launch due to its ability to let users express themselves by customizing the colors of their profiles. Gen Z may not have grown up with MySpace and its sprawling customizations, but there's still nostalgia for the social networking experiences they never had.
“I think the magical, fun part of the internet is gone now. Everything's become very homogenized,” says founder and CEO Tiffany Chong, who previously founded early-stage consumer fund Pineapple Capital and worked at Binary Capital as a teenager, helping to unearth early-stage consumer deals.
Image credit: Noplace
Having tried every consumer social app out there for the past decade, Chung has an eye for spotting the next big thing: She noticed Musical.ly, for example, was hugely popular among kids and younger users, and in 2015 she identified the startup as the next Snap or Twitter.
She also frequently tweets product insights and analysis, especially about consumer apps, and has built a following on social media. Given her background, it's no surprise that Zhong has thoughtful ideas about what would appeal to today's young users in a new social networking app.
Image credit: Noplace
“I've always loved social,” she says, but adds that social media isn't really social anymore. “Everything's just media. It feels very isolating.”
One reason for this is that all of the content on our platform is now highly personalized, the founders say. “We watch a lot of different content, [following] “We have different interests than our friends, and as a result it's harder to find community,” she says.
The idea of noplace is to provide a place where people can follow their friends and find people with similar interests in one place.
The app offers customizable mini-profiles where users can share what they're up to and customize to reflect their interests. Users' profiles can be tagged with interests or topics they're passionate about, which the app calls “stars.” For example, users can add their astrological sign, Myers-Briggs personality type, hobbies, or fandoms to their profile to help others find them. There's also a “Top 10 Friends” section, reminiscent of MySpace's Top 8.
But noplace focuses on text-based updates and doesn't currently support photos or videos, making it more of a global group chat or Twitter/X rival than a Facebook alternative.
Image credit: Noplace
“Facebook 10 years ago, or the Facebook I was on when I was in middle school, was all about cool life updates,” Zhong said. “That's not the case anymore, is it? [friends] On Instagram, there are only highlights and not many updates.”
Noplace also allows users to share what they are doing now, not what they have already done. Being in a new city, seeing a show, checking out a new band, etc. can be updated as a status update. The app offers two feeds: one with friends and a global feed from everyone in the app, both in chronological order. There are no private profiles.
People who enter their age as under 18 will also receive a more moderated feed. The company is committed to moderation, building its own in-house dashboard for this purpose and assembling a team to ensure user safety.
Image credit: Noplace
noplace uses AI technology instead of algorithms to drive suggestions and curation: rather than compiling a feed for users, the app uses AI for features such as providing summaries of content you may have missed.
“We did that on purpose. Having a global public feed makes it a lot of fun. It's like putting everyone's brains on paper,” Zhong points out. “People are having a lot of fun. They're saying, 'I've never seen an app like this before.'”
The Tokyo and San Francisco-based founders began developing noplace late last year with a full-time team of seven people who were distributed remotely. Late last year, noplace launched an invite-only beta and “accidentally went viral,” Zhong said, as the team handed out invite codes to early adopters, including K-pop fans.
The app is poised to be an alternative to the network currently known as X under Elon Musk for younger Twitter users, offering the same ability to post to a text-based feed but combining it with friend discovery and customization options to appeal to their age group.
The app is free to download on iOS and available in read-only mode on the web. No monetization plans are currently underway. Noplace competes with other friend-finding apps targeted at Gen Z, including Wizz, Yubo, purp, and LMK.
The startup is backed by investors including 776 (Alexis Ohanian), Forerunner Ventures, and others. The company raised $15 million in the Seris A1 round at a pre-money valuation of $75 million, bringing its total funding to more than $19 million, according to PitchBook data.