Teenage ideas That Turn Into A Million Dollar Enterprise



Catherine Cook

MeetMe was initially created as myYearbook by two high school students, Dave and Catherine Cook, and Dave's older brother Geoff, and Hailey Hookah during Spring Break of 2005. Catherine persuaded Geoff, who founded EssayEdge.com and ResumeEdge.com from a dorm in 1997, to invest in their project. At the launch of the site, Dave was a junior and Catherine was a sophomore; the project was initially activated at Montgomery High School, in suburban New Jersey where they attended. The site was created entirely by developers in India.

In 2008, myYearbook partnered with casual game developer Arkadium to bring Flash based games to the site. The games incorporate Lunch Money, the myYearbook virtual currency. Lunch Money earned playing games are used elsewhere on the site. In April 2009, the site added the Meebo instant messaging client to the site in order to provide real time chat. In November 2009, myYearbook launched Chatter, a real-time stream that incorporates media sharing and gaming to help bring members together. Games you can play inside the stream include Ask Me, Rate Me and 2 Truths and a Lie. These games incorporate mechanics that help myYearbook members meet each other. By April 2010 the site reported the Chatter feature surpassed 1 million posts per day.

In January 2010, myYearbook rolled out a new site design aimed to appeal to an older demographic. Of note is the "winning" site design was chosen through crowdsourcing its members. In May 2010, myYearbook launched an iPhone/iPod Touch and Android application designed to bring the Chatter real time feed to mobile devices.
In July 2011, myYearbook announced it had agreed to be acquired by Latino social networking site Quepasa for $100 Million In Cash And Stock. The purchase was finalized on November 11, 2011. In December 2011, myYearbook launched an iPad app in an attempt to reach the tablet market. In June 2012, myYearbook was renamed MeetMe. This change is due to the fact that "Yearbook" means more about meeting friends from the past while "MeetMe" will give the meaning of users making new friends, which is what the website is intended for.The rebranding of the site proved to be successful.
In October 2013, MeetMe launched Charm, a mobile dating app. In February 2014, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed a lawsuit against MeetMe, accusing the company of “violating California's Unfair Competition Law by relying on legally invalid consent from minors between the ages of 13 and 17 to collect and improperly distribute their real-time geolocation and personal user information.” Herrara stated that "MeetMe has become a tool of choice for sexual predators to target underage victims, and the company's irresponsible privacy policies and practices are to blame for it." The lawsuit lists instances of individuals arrested on sex charges against minors after connecting with the victim on MeetMe. Company CEO Geoff Cook told the Los Angeles Times that MeetMe “does not discuss pending litigation," but speaking about safety practices generally, Cook said the company reviews “hundreds of thousands of photos posted to our services every day, and we compare the information provided by our users to a sex-offender registry.”The lawsuit contends that dozens of minors have been "victimized by sex crimes" by predators who were able to locate the users through the app. An estimated quarter of MeetMe's 40 million users are under 18 years old.