We Heart It is an image-based

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

network. We Heart It describes itself as "A home for your inspiration" and a place to "Organize and share the things you love." Users can collect (or "heart") their favorite images to share with friends and organize into collections. Users can access the site through a web browser or We Heart It's

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 includes ...

and Android mobile apps.

History

We Heart It was founded in 2008 by Fabio Giolito, a native of

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. He started the site as a side project around the idea of "hearting" photos and saving them for sharing with friends. What started as a tool for himself and friends, the product grew organically from there. When growth began to surge, Fabio brought on co-founder Bruno Zanchet to help focus on infrastructure. The two took on some

seed funding Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...

and the site became an incorporated business in California in 2011.

Business

We Heart It was incorporated in the United States in 2011. Its headquarters are located in

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 ...

and has a team of 25 employees. As of June 2013, We Heart It raised $8 million in Series A funding from White Oak and

IDG Ventures IDG Ventures is a global family of venture funds with approximately $3.6 billion under management. All of the funds were originally sole-source-funded by International Data Group. The first fund was created by IDG in 1996 and was located in ...

. As of February 2014, We Heart It ranks 754 in

Alexa Alexa may refer to: Technology *Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon * Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service * Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture camera People *Alexa (name), a given name and ...

's global traffic rank. In May 2014, We Heart It rolled out

mobile advertising Mobile advertising is a form of advertising via mobile (wireless) phones or other mobile devices. It is a subset of mobile marketing, mobile advertising can take place as text ads via SMS, or banner advertisements that appear embedded in a mob ...

in the app. As of January 2016, We Heart It announced a video content partnership with Popular TV. As of June 2016, We Heart It formed a strategic partnership with

influencer marketing Influencer marketing (also known as influence marketing) is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social infl ...

company The Blu Market, led by co-CEOs Steven Forkosh and

Jonas Brothers The Jonas Brothers () are an American pop rock band. Formed in 2005, they gained popularity from their appearances on the Disney Channel television network. They consist of three brothers: Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas, and Nick Jonas. Raised in W ...

singer

Kevin Jonas Paul Kevin Jonas II (born November 5, 1987) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. He rose to fame as a member of the pop rock band, the Jonas Brothers, alongside his younger brothers Joe and Nick. Jonas became a prominent figu ...

, in hopes of attracting more users and advertisers. We Heart It is no longer incorporated in the United States. It is now owned by Super Basic, LLC. It no longer has an office or any employees in San Francisco.

Features

We Heart It is a visual platform that supports still images, animated GIFs, and video. It offers follow icons, live widgets, and share buttons for users who want to incorporate We Heart It on their website or blog. We Heart It is known for its positive community, since there are no features for commenting, users feel more comfortable posting content since it will not receive negative comments as it might on other social networks. In December 2015, the companion app Easel was released. With Easel, users can create custom images with quotes, filters, and colors to share on We Heart It or other social media apps. Since 2015, Weheartit has launched a Heartist program to award its top users. These 'Heartists' are leaders in creativity and are known to inspire other members of the community. These people are a selection of the most engaged WHI users every year, and Weheartit awards them with a pink star badge that shows on people's profile pictures. In late August 2017, the feature Articles was released on the site to even further its users' creativity. With this function, the community is now able to share poems, recipes, opinions, creative thoughts and ideas, advice; anything you are able to write down. A while later, “Reactions” were added to the site where you could react to the articles with 5 different options. If you did not want to heart an article, you had the choice to react to it still, while it not having to appear in your canvas. In 2018, reactions for images were added as well.

Usage

In December 2013, We Heart It reached 25 million monthly users. Four out of five of the site's over 25 million users are under 24 years old, and more than 70 percent are female. We Heart It has an average user age of 19. On average, We Heart It members spend more than 16.5 minutes on the site at a time. The average mobile app users opens the app over 25 times per month. In March 2015, We Heart It introduced a new postcard feature allowing its 30 million registered users to message one another with images. ''

The 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 ...

'' cited We Heart It as one of the "10 Happiest Places On The Internet" for finding a smile or inspiration on. We Heart It was chosen as one of

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...

's Best Apps of 2013. and Best Apps of 2015.

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.weheartit.com/ Android (operating system) software Companies based in San Francisco Software companies established in 2011 Social media companies of the United States Internet properties established in 2008 IOS software Mobile social software Multilingual websites Imageboards American photography websites American companies established in 2011