Geckolife

GeckoLife is a family-safe social network that puts kids first. Parents of children 7-14 can’t keep them off the Internet, but worry about privacy, cyber- bullying, and advertising. In addition, as parents we are inundated with communication platforms when interacting and storing that revolves around our families. GeckoLife intends to be the single platform for families to communicate, collaborate, share and store. Our social network intends to charge a subscription fee so it’s clear that families are the customer, never the product.

We were in beta for almost 12 months as we readied the multi-platform product. In beta we reached 2,000 users. All these were organic users without any marketing.

We have only officially launched in the last few weeks, and are in fact starting our PR and marketing strategy is starting now. We are currently at 5,600 users on the GeckoLife platform.

 

Problem

Facebook sells users to advertisers. Many parents don’t allow their young children to join Facebook; in fact, some parents are themselves quitting Facebook. Facebook is fine for college students and single adults, but it doesn’t work for families. Yet families still need to make plans and share photos with other families.

Social today does a relatively poor job of archiving events – be it a holiday, a conversation around a subject area, or a reunion. Most platforms are ‘in- stant social’ – timelines of co-mingled content. GeckoLife intends to become ‘social with purpose, structure and duration.’

Solution

The McAfee Tweens Teens and Tech-nology Survey 2014 reports that 70% of parents in the APAC region know only “somewhat” of what their children do online. GeckoLife’s survey conducted at Techventure 2014 echoed the same, with 56% of parents surveyed allowing their pre-teen children to have a social media presence, whilst keeping a watchful eye.

The data from social networks shows that FBs user growth is abating. Users are seeking alternatives. The successes of Yammer, ASmallWorld, and Ello show there is still a massive opportunity in different approaches to social networks.

Our approach is ‘family-oriented.’ Initially adults/parents have the ability to approve all content and connections of their children. Over time, children can be ‘released’ with less monitoring. It is our hope that children become better digital citizens on GeckoLife – less clickbait, more social responsibility appropriate to Asian values.

 

More information

Official – website
Creative Commons – images
On – Angel List
On – Crunchbase
Contact: geckolife@jfdi.asia