Each of these companies—Cameo, Community, Loosid, and Revel—joined Pinterest and MeWe to increase the social network’s popularity.

We’ve been complaining for years that finding a cool new social media app requires going back to the early 2010s. This past year may have finally broken the curse: irresistibly shareable personalized video clips from celebrities and the ability to text chain with your favorite celebrities prove that there’s still opportunity for fresh ideas to go mainstream, even when one corporation owns many big social networks. In addition, 2019 saw the emergence of social shopping as well as the revival of niche networks for groups that don’t fit neatly into a one-size-fits-all category.

CAMEO IS THE FIRST

For developing the “famous faces on demand” platform, which allows fans to purchase personal films from over 30,000 celebrities.
Despite the fact that it was founded in 2017, the Chicago-based firm only made its pop-culture debut this year. The “famous faces on demand” business, which allows users to book celebrities to create customised video shout-outs for anything from birthdays to good luck wishes, prom invites, and marriage proposals, is both a utility for and appears to be the next development of modern celebrity. The number of employees at the company increased from 18 to 135, while the number of celebrities that took part increased from 3,000 to over 20,000 in 2019. Cameo also raised $50 million in Series B funding and expanded globally to the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

COMMUNITY is the second item on the list.

For allowing celebrities like Kerry Washington and Jennifer Lopez to contact their fans and receive texts in return.
This text-based social platform, which launched in summer 2019, provides a walled garden for celebrities, artists, and their fans to connect, away from prying eyes of trolls, and provides the stars with more information about their fans—age, location, and so on—than they can get from traditional social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Community has kept its celebrity and artist roster small thus far, with less than a thousand stars and artists, but it’s a diverse group that includes Ashton Kutcher (also an investor), Kerry Washington, Tony Hawk, Amy Schumer, Paul McCartney, Ninja, and others. “The point is now we don’t have to rely on platforms that share all of our information but don’t provide [artists] the information directly,” Guy Oseary, a star music manager and Kutcher’s Sound Ventures investment partner, told Fast Company. They’re all excellent broadcasting platforms. They are necessary for everyone of us. We all make use of them. They’re fantastic. But [Community] is the platform of the future if I want to have a more meaningful, direct connection.”

PINTEREST is a great place to look for new ways to turn ideas into sales.

The visual social network has grown dramatically in the last year, reaching nearly 335 million monthly active members, a 26 percent rise year over year, outperforming Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. In 2019, its U.S. audience grew by 8%, while its overseas audience grew by 35%. In terms of revenue, the company made $400 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, up 46 percent year over year, bringing the total for the year to $1.14 billion. Pinterest debuted Shop The Look advertisements in September 2019, which allow advertisers to showcase numerous products in a single ad, making it easier for customers to purchase more items from a single image. The company then released Try On, powered by Lens, in October 2023, which allows customers to digitally try makeup from brands like as Estée Lauder, Sephora, bareMinerals, Neutrogena, and L’Oreal. That should be pinned.

LINKTREE For transforming Instagram’s “link in bio” into a slick menu for sharing articles, merch, or paid partnerships.

This Australian startup began in 2016 as a method to clean out the “link in bio” clutter on Instagram, which was created by brands and others attempting to connect their followers to their products. It now connects your social followers to your whole online ecosystem, using a single link to guide them to e-commerce or other relevant information for any business or brand. Over the past year, Linktree has averaged 10,000 signups per day, increasing its active users by 200 percent to more than three million, with Twitch, YouTube, and Pinterest accounting for more than 40% of traffic. Chance the Rapper used it as part of his Lyft relationship to debut his album The Big Day in July 2019, providing fans the opportunity to download it for free or give to the Chicago Public Schools through SocialWorks, all from within the Lyft app.

LOOSID is a website that connects sober people.

Loosid is a digital sober community that makes dating, traveling, and socializing easier for folks who don’t drink alcohol. It was founded in 2018. When nonalcoholic beverages are worth $7 billion more than they were four years ago, and zero- or low-alcohol beer is the fifth-fastest-growing beer kind, Loosid is capitalizing on the opportunities. Boozeless Guides, an inside look at local restaurants and pubs across the United States that provide alcohol-free drink options, debuted in early 2022.
The seventh annual innovation festival has been announced by Fast Company.
EVENTS FOR FAST COMPANIES
Fast Company has announced the outlines of their seventh annual innovation festival, dubbed “The Rebuilders,” which will look into ways to reinvent business, community, and culture in the aftermath of the epidemic.

FLIGHTHOUSE, NO. 6

For generating over 2 billion monthly views and 22 million followers on its TikTok talk show
Flighthouse was on TikTok when it was still known as Musical.ly, and currently has a monthly viewership of two billion. This year, the channel surpassed the 20-million-follower threshold, up from 16.8 million the year before. As part of its relationship with Republic Records, it debuted a new music-focused, short-form show called “Certified Superfan” on Tik Tok in early 2022. Flighthouse has worked with Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande, but it also helps lesser-known artists gain exposure. Niki’s song “Indigo” became a Top-5 trending song on TikTok thanks to their campaign, which averaged over 100,000 reposts per week.

HOLLER, NO. 7

For making 1 billion animated discussion stickers per day for iMessage, Twitch, and other platforms
The New York-based company rebranded from Emogi to Holler, and took its intelligent AI-powered, animated visual content for messaging apps and expanded to create sticker campaigns for brands like Ikea, Snickers, Bud Light, Fox, and Subway, and took its intelligent AI-powered, animated visual content for messaging apps and expanded to create sticker campaigns for brands like Ikea, Snickers, Bud Light, Fox, and Subway. Simultaneously, it grew to include animated content on platforms like Badoo and Venmo. It increased from a billion messaging interactions per month to a billion per day in 2019.

MEWE is number eight.

For creating the first and only social network without adverts, targeting, or a privacy bill of rights.
Given the company’s numerous issues with privacy, advertising, and user data, anything that seems like the anti-Facebook deserves consideration. MeWe has grown at a 405 percent rate since 2018, and by mid-2019, it had reached five million users and closed a $4.5 million funding round, bringing the company’s total cash raised to $15 million. “MeWe returns the power of the internet back to the people with a platform created for cooperation and privacy,” says Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, who is also a board member.

9. REJOICE FOR ASSISTING WOMEN OVER 50 IN FORMING FRIENDSHIPS

Revel’s goal is to create a nationwide subscription-based network tailored to women over the age of 50, helping them foster new relationships. While most social startups focus on becoming the next flashy digi-bauble of whatever generation is coming next, Revel’s goal is to create a nationwide subscription-based network tailored to women over the age of 50, helping them foster new relationships. It currently has a community of 500 users and has received $2.5 million in funding from Forerunner Ventures. Although age is simply a number, the number of people in a social group that is often overlooked—and the opportunity it represents—is enormous.

PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM OF JFK

For using Twitch to recreate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 “Moonshot” speech, the library collaborated with its marketing agency, Digitas, to create JFK Moonshot, a fully synchronized, augmented-reality app that re-created Apollo 11 in real time, second by second, exactly 50 years later. It also used over 110 hours of Apollo 11 audio broadcasts, fullscreen 3D animations, and live Twitter feeds in the astronauts’ voices to follow the lunar journey on social media in real time. With over 240 million brand impressions, the effort enabled a new generation of Americans learn about space exploration and become interested in it.