Newsmaker: The secrets of a teen's Internet success

Internet start-ups have a legacy of twenty-something founders. Just look at Microsoft, Yahoo and Google.

But that esteemed age limit is lowering.

Catherine Cook, the 17-year-old co-founder of MyYearbook.com, hatched the idea for her now-thriving online yearbook site when she was a sophomore in high school. Now, in little less than two years, the site is making millions in annual revenue from advertising, Cook said, and attracts more than 3 million monthly visitors, according to research firm ComScore. (In 2006, it raised $4.1 million in venture funding from U.S. Venture Partners and First Round Capital.)

It's also in a sweet spot for online marketing. Its audience is primarily between the ages of 13 and 22, and nearly all are from the United States.

By next year, Cook hopes to turn MyYearbook into the largest teen media company online, buoyed by a new user-generated magazine and tools that let high schoolers challenge each other to voting duels on topics like best-looking senior. While she's plotting online domination, she will also be studying international business and marketing at Georgetown University this fall.

CNET News.com talked to Cook about skipping school, raising venture capital and the future of online publishing.

Best-looking is the most popular category. We launched video battles about a month ago, and now best music video is also very popular.

Q: So how did you get the idea for MyYearbook?
Cook: Basically, Dave (my brother) and I were pretty new in our school. We had just moved to Montgomery the year before, so none of us really knew that many people in our grades, and we turned to the (yearbook) as a way to get to know other people in our classes better at the time. David was showing me a picture of some girl...and we thought it would be much cooler if you could make your own, maybe post a picture online and have a profile. This was even before we had even heard of Facebook. So we started brainstorming this idea, and a few days later we approached Geoff at dinner.

This was your other, older brother?
Cook: Yes, my oldest brother, Geoff, and he invested $250,000. He has the money from a Web site he started in college. And from there, we started working on all of our templates, which were actually made in India because our programming team is there. My brother had worked with programmers in India before so it just seemed like a good option for us, too.

So the whole site was developed in India?
Cook: Yeah, the original. It kind of came around in phases. The first phase was just launched in our high school, so it was like a testing one. The original site we launched didn't have any of our most popular features. All the core features of the site all came from my friends' ideas--they were telling me during lunch, all the break-the-ice features and secret admirer stuff.

That's interesting. All of the popular features were your friends' ideas?
Cook: Actually, the most popular feature right now, Battles, which has like made our page views go up by 500 percent since this February, was someone on the site's idea. That person said that he wanted a new way of doing superlatives, so I came up with Battles--a one-on-one image contest, instead of just being against everyone in your class. Best-looking is the most popular category. We launched video battles about a month ago, and now best music video is also very popular.

How do you think your site compares to MySpace.com and Facebook?
Cook: We're actually really different than those sites. Comparatively in page views, MyYearbook is third in the United States after MySpace and Facebook, but we're bigger than Bebo, Hi5, Tagged.

But compared to MySpace and Facebook, MyYearbook is a lot younger, so 80 percent of our users are between 13 and 22, whereas MySpace reports they only have 12 percent of teen users and Facebook is now going mass-market. So we definitely stay to our niche.

Another big difference is unlike MySpace and Facebook, on those sites what you really do is to click on profiles and go into the groups, but on MyYearbook only 10 percent of the page views come from clicking around profiles. The other clicks are for our other features like Battles, MyMag and quizzes. That's where almost all of the traffic comes from.

That's something that is very unique about MyYearbook. There are a lot of sites that let you make a profile, but we are the only one that really has very competitive Battles, online magazines that users make themselves, and I think we have more than 100,000 quizzes.

You came up with My Mag--a user-written teen magazine. Why do you think it's resonating with your visitors?
Cook: My Mag is really for people who want to be on the site but who aren't necessarily into Battles or feel the need to challenge people. I think it's so popular because all of the new articles are things that our users write. We do have professional editors--otherwise the articles wouldn't be as good as they are.

More Newsmakers

[cocobongo04]

All fake

You'd think CNET would do a little research before they write an article like this. Here is an article with a more realistic angle

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/12/myyearbook/" target="_newWindow">http://mashable.com/2007/07/12/myyearbook/</a>

[Frewgle]

Good Catch

Way to go cocobongo.

maybe they should have googled first...

[kromaethius007]

CNET Screws the Pooch!

Wow, a serious SNAFU on Cnet's journalism. Gosh, someone didn't do their research at all here. I found out more about the truth of the matter with this so called teen startup company through simply Googling the news for the facts.

Say do you all (the readers here) suppose CNET maybe in bed with Yearbook.com?

[enigma.live]

$250k from brother for start-up

Give me $250k, and I'll go to India and have a social network that becomes worth a few billion. So the girl is a high school student and becomes so successful as an entrepreneur, that shouldn't be the story, that's not the truth. The truth is little girl hits lucky jackpot from brother willing to dump $250,000 on using her as a spokesmodel to start another social network no brainer idea, using cheap labor in India that will design a website and do code for about $1000 USD. I doubt the brother INITIALLY put up $250k, however they need to say that to start putting up the idea that there's barriers to entry. Give most any highschool kid that has just an ounce of entrepreneurial spirit $10k-$25k and he or she will make something huge out of it, notice I didn't say all high school kids..the others would just blow it on one huge party. But, I ask is it just me getting tired of the news making these social network founders out to be some kind of brilliant entrepreneurs that had a genius idea?

[georgescott]

It is not the site it is the marketing

Anyone can create these features; driving them into the mainstream is the difference between success and obscurity.

I don't believe if you give any high school kid $10k-$25k they would be able to have great success out of it. You might create a competition for the $10k to $25k to bring out the best ideas which would get you more bang for your buck.

[itango]

And not only the $250K, but

"big brother" was also the one that supplied the contacts to the software developers in India, whom he manages, as well as the marketing smarts for the concept. Tell me, what did this little girl really do to "develop" this company?

[dice1981]

EXACTLY RIGHT! I searched for the article just so I could comment on it but you already spoke for me. What's so genius about starting a website that becomes successful when you have 250k to launch it?? See, There's always a catch behind this. MONEY MAKES MONEY. Now find me someone that started from Nothing,...scratch and I will applaud them.

[dmm]

My lazy, no-good older brother...

didn't have $250K to give me, so I never made much of myself. He's such a jerk.

Plus, my friends didn't give me great ideas so I could make money. What a bunch of losers.

If only I had a better brother and better friends!

[nmcphers]

Lets not forget...

That brother didn't make millions before developing his own website so he could show you the ropes and help you hire programmers in India.

[sadchild]

big bro geoff = alchohol buyer? what kind of message is that?

right on their web page, under catherine's bio....

Geoff, 27, is our older brother / investor / alcohol buyer.

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.myyearbook.com/our_story.php" target="_newWindow">http://www.myyearbook.com/our_story.php</a>

yeah great, thanks. what kind of site are you underage drinkers trying to push on our kids? what next? cigarette ads?

[Tomcat Adam]

Get over it.

Drinking is something that teens will do whether you push it on them or not. Merely mentioning it is just an attention grabber, and nothing more.

[enigma.live]

Better Friends and Better Brothers Yellow Pages

Does anyone know where I can find a guide or yellow pages to look up how to find a better brother and better friends?

I know my older brother is a loser that's not going to give me $250k, and I know my friends are losers that are not going to give me great ideas, so now I'm getting off my lazy butt to take the initiative to seek out the top Big Brothers who give out $250k or more and Better Friends who give out great ideas.

Maybe why I'm at it I need to find a better network of reporters and bloggers who will promote me and my made up story of success to generate a buzz.

Oh wait, I have a call, it's my parents, not the better parents I need, the real ones, oh their saying I need to stick to school and stop dreaming.

[wildchild_plasma_gyro]

large social networking based company take over bids.

If you we're part of a large wiki community that collected funds and organised workforce that wanted to take over a company for investment and development purposes.
What company would you choose.
I vote SKYPE
what would be your choice?
Answer below!

[dornbear]

Guess You Don't Have Any American IT friends

Guess you don't have any American IT friend if you're shipping your IT work out to India. What a shame, do you know how many recent computer science graduates cannot find work because its all being shipped to India? Either that, or outsourced to Indian firms in the US? Maybe your career will be next, what are you studying in college?

[mgee99]

Reading is Fundamental to Success

Article says the lady will be studying International Business... !

[karlgee]

Wow... All I can say is wow.

A great idea turned into reality by a young girl and her brothers $$$. We wish you all the best of luck and the big $$$! Its great to see new sites that actually make a splash - as we have seen so many others that hit a brick wall and go SPLAT!

Thanks and Good Luck from <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.askTheAdmin.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.askTheAdmin.com</a>

[arkboynko]

Support a non-teen startup!

Seems like everyone is launching a networking site. Check out <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.reciperate.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.reciperate.com</a> to find one for people interested in networking around food and sharing recipes.

[Maccess]

Cool. Not icky.

These are the kinds of 17-year olds we'd rather see on cNet. Visionaries and future entrepreneurs.

[bts845]

Shame on Cnet

This story is completely wrong. Just as others have referenced in their comments, the teen has little if any involvement in the company. This is all a PR ploy with the young girl being the puppet. This information is easily available on the internet and the writer of this article sure dropped the ball with regards to research. Shame on Cnet for allowing this garbage to be published.

[iconvanity]

MyYearbook is actually lying to people. I have been with that site for nealy 4 months now and what I noticed is, it is basically being run by credit card companies, since everything from VIP status to all the advertisement on that site, one needs a credit card. The site also entices people to purchase "Lunch Money" using a credit card.

The site also claims to write a check at the end of the year to certain "Causes" such as Save The Amazon Rainforest Org. and AIDS research to name a couple. Yet, ask anyone that is associated with those organizations, they will all tell you they never received any chekc whatsoever.

MyYearbook wants people to think they get at least 15,000+ new members per day, yet, what they aren't telling you is, most if not all of those "new" people are people that are already members that are creating more accounts and calling it "back up accounts" for "battles".

Again, MyYearbook does not write a check at the end of the year as they claim, since, if this was the case, the checks would have millions of dollars on them and this would make this site well known, especially with the news media, but it hasn't. I know the check would've been in the millions, since, at 4 months, and with the amount of "friends" I have on my list, they already have donated billions of their Lunch Money to these Causes. Now times that 4 months to 3.

The Cook siblings are probably props in the game of Credit Cards duping people out of their money. I challenge anyone to produce paper trails of these mysterious checks that the Cook siblings claim to write at the end of the year.

Go to MyYearbook's site and see all the advertisements all going back to using credit cards in order to purchase. High school teens with credit cards? Very small percentage there.

[smke9]

Thank you for your traffic secret success. I love social networking and think it brings everyone as a community together and gets everyone involved.
http://the-traffic-secrets-101.blogspot.com/