Imgur
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Imgur ( , stylized as imgur) is an American online
image sharing Image sharing, or photo sharing, is the publishing or transfer of digital photos online. Image sharing websites offer services such as uploading, hosting, managing and sharing of photos (publicly or privately). This function is provided through ...
and
image hosting {{internet hosting, right An image hosting service allows individuals to upload images to an Internet website. The image host will then store the image onto its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view that i ...
service with a focus on social gossip that was founded by
Alan Schaaf Alan Schaaf (born October 21, 1987) is an American entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and CEO of the image sharing app and website Imgur. Early life Schaaf was born in Granville, Ohio. He attended Ohio University and received a b ...
in 2009. The service has hosted viral images and meme, particularly those posted on
Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
.


History

The company was started in 2009 in Athens, Ohio as Alan Schaaf's side project while he attended
Ohio University Ohio University is a Public university, public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confeder ...
for
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
. Imgur was created as a response to the usability problems encountered in similar services. "It took off almost instantly, jumping from a thousand hits per day to a million total page views in the first five months." In October 2012, Imgur expanded its functionality to allow users to directly share images to Imgur instead of requiring images to gain enough attraction through other social media sites like Reddit to show up on the popular image gallery. In the beginning, Imgur relied on donations to help with the
web hosting A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing we ...
costs. Display ads were introduced in May 2009; sponsored images and self-service ads were introduced in 2013. Imgur used three different hosting providers in the first year before settling on Voxel, then switching to
Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. These cloud computing web services provide d ...
in late 2011. In January 2011, the company moved from Ohio to
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. As of June 2013 it had 10 employees, and won the Best Bootstrapped Startup award at
TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...
's 2012 Crunchies Awards. In 2016, Reddit introduced native image hosting, causing a notable decrease in Imgur submissions on the site. On September 27, 2021, Imgur announced that they were acquired by MediaLab AI, Inc., a holding company of internet brands.


Funding

In April 2014, five years after it was founded, Imgur raised $40 million from
Andreessen Horowitz Andreessen Horowitz (also called a16z, legal name AH Capital Management, LLC) is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Andreessen H ...
and Andreessen Horowitz's Lars Dalgaard joined Imgur's board. Imgur was profitable at the time, generating revenue from Pro subscriptions and advertising.


Popularity

In April 2016, it was ranked 16th among Alexa's Top Sites in the United States but by April 2021 it had dropped to #51.


Features


Albums

Albums were introduced on October 11, 2010. Album layouts are customizable and embeddable.


Accounts

On January 9, 2010, Schaaf introduced Imgur accounts, which allowed users to create custom image galleries and manage their images. Accounts gave full image management including editing, deletion, album creation and embedding, and the ability to comment on viral images and submit to the public gallery. Gallery profiles gave the user the ability to view their past public activity. Paid pro accounts were created in 2010 to remove image upload limitations and allow unlimited image storage.


Images

Imgur used to have a policy to keep images unless they went three months without receiving any views, at which point (unless they were Pro account images) they might be removed in response to space needs. In early 2015, it was announced all images will be kept forever (even if not added from a Pro account) and only removed if deletion is requested.


Meme Generator

Since June 26, 2013, Imgur has provided a "Meme Generator" service that allows users to create
image macro An image macro is a piece of digital media featuring a picture, or artwork, with some form of text superimposed. The text frequently appears at the top and bottom of the image. Image macros are one of the most common forms of internet memes, an ...
s with custom text using a wide variety of images.


Gallery

The public Imgur gallery is a collection of the most viral images from around the web based on an algorithm that computes views, shares and votes based on time. As opposed to private account uploads, images added to the gallery are publicly searchable by title. Members of the Imgur community can vote and comment on the images, earning reputation points and trophies. Images from the gallery are often later posted to social news sites such as
Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
. Random mode was released on July 30, 2012, and allows users to browse the entire history of the public gallery randomly.


GIFV

Since October 2014, Imgur had automatically converted uploaded animated GIF files into
WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML5 video and the HTML5 audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored ...
and MP4 video files, which are much smaller.


Video to GIF

In January 2015, Imgur allowed users to link video URLs to create GIFs directly through the website.


Topics

In February 2015 Imgur announced "Topics" which was a way for users to sort and view specific images that belonged to a specific group determined by tags.


Mobile apps

In March and June 2015 Imgur introduced official mobile apps for
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
and Android, respectively.


Trophies

In order to reward users for their interactions, Imgur provides a series of Trophies for achievements including being a member for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 years, "Best Post of the Day", "Best Post of the Month", "Best Post of the Year", "Top Comment of The Day", "Top Comment of The Month", and "Top Comment of The Year".


Community

At the beginning of 2015, Imgur's director of community Sarah Schaaf announced its first ever "Camp Imgur". Five hundred tickets were sold at $150 each. The camp was created as a celebratory event to bring users of the site together in August 2015, on a four-day retreat at Camp Navarro in
Mendocino, California Mendocino ( Spanish for "of Mendoza") is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Mendocino County, California, United States. Mendocino is located south of Fort Bragg at an elevation of . The population of the CDP was 9 ...
. It included hiking, stand-up comedians, and meetings with the staff of Imgur and other users. Imgur's community members include former Mythbuster
Adam Savage Adam Whitney Savage (born July 15, 1967) is an American special effects designer and fabricator, actor, educator, and television personality and producer, best known as the former co-host (with Jamie Hyneman) of the Discovery Channel televisi ...
and Olympic athlete
Cody Miller Cody William Miller (born January 9, 1992) is an American competitive swimmer. He is a former world record holder in both the men's 4×50 meter freestyle relay and the mixed 4×50 meter freestyle relay as well as a former American record hold ...
.


Data breach

On November 23, 2017, Imgur was notified of a potential security breach that had occurred in 2014 and affected the email addresses and passwords of 1.7 million user accounts. On November 24, 2017, Imgur began notifying affected users via their registered email address to change their password.


See also

*
Image sharing Image sharing, or photo sharing, is the publishing or transfer of digital photos online. Image sharing websites offer services such as uploading, hosting, managing and sharing of photos (publicly or privately). This function is provided through ...
*
List of image-sharing websites This article presents a non-exhaustive list of notable image-sharing websites. Active image-sharing websites Defunct photo-sharing websites :''These also include sites that may still operate, but do not accept new users. Listed in chronolo ...


References


External links

* {{Reddit 2009 establishments in Ohio American photography websites Image-sharing websites Internet properties established in 2009 Online mass media companies of the United States Social networking websites