A new social-networking Web site is doing something that not many of its brethren have been able to do: It’s attracting people over 25.
Like Facebook.com and MySpace.com, LateNightShots.com allows users to build a profile, make digital friends, and post photos. The twist: This site is by invitation only and focuses, as the name implies, on drinking.
“If anyone could sign up, it would be a big turnoff,” says 25-year-old cofounder Reed Landry, who guesses that many of the 3,000 registrants wouldn’t be caught dead on MySpace, which is open to anyone.
“The most interesting thing to me is the number of people in their thirties who have signed up,” Landry says.
The exclusivity of the site and its focus on drinking—one of the first things new members are asked is to list their favorite watering holes—have evoked a little digital wrath. The blog Why I Hate DC bashed the site for its upscale exclusiveness: There is a space in one’s profile to list social affiliations and country clubs, and the most popular bar mentioned is Georgetown’s Smith Point, a favorite of the blue-blazers-and-pearls crowd. Hipster hangouts like Wonderland and Bar Pilar don’t appear here.
Any member can invite new members, which may help the site move away from its Georgetown focus.
Although Landry admits to not having much control over what direction it takes, he says one thing is certain: It won’t be open to the masses.
