 | |
Type of site | Image sharing |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Dissolved | 2015 |
| Registration | Required |
| Launched | February 2009 [1] |
| Current status | Defunct |
yfrog is a defunct image hosting service formerly run by ImageShack. It commenced operations in February 2009 and shut down in 2015. The service was designed primarily to allow users to share their photographs and videos as links on the Twitter microblogging platform.
Yfrog was launched in February 2009. [1] The name yfrog was based on "yellow frog", which is the logo of ImageShack. The original yfrog logo featured a yellow frog, but in May 2011 was changed to a circle of six speech balloons in different colors. [2]
Images and videos were uploaded to yfrog via the website interface, or by email. The URLs of yfrog links were shorter than on ImageShack (e.g. http://yfrog.com/1upend), in order to fit within the 140 characters limit of a tweet. The yfrog website was optimized for mobile viewing, and aimed to capture a market similar to TwitPic's. [3] [4] As of October 2010, 25 applications supported the yfrog upload API, including the official Twitter for iPhone app, TweetDeck, Seesmic, Twitterrific, and Twittelator. [5]
Yfrog had approximately 29% of the Twitter photo sharing market in 2011. [4]
In summer 2011, Twitter began hosting its own images natively through its web and mobile interfaces, which caused usage to go down. [6] Yfrog pivoted to run its own social media service, Yfrog Social, in 2012. [7] Yfrog Social shut down in 2015, while Yfrog for Twitter also redirected to ImageShack and replaced former images with unrelated ads. [8]
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. This function is provided through both websites and applications that facilitate the upload and display of images. The term can also be loosely applied to the use of online photo galleries that are set up and managed by individual users, including photoblogs. Sharing means that other users can view but not necessarily download images, and users can select different copyright options for their images.
Photobucket is an American image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community. Photobucket hosts more than 17 billion photos and videos from 70 million registered members. Photobucket's headquarters are in Denver, Colorado. The website was founded in 2003 by Alex Welch and Darren Crystal and received funding from Trinity Ventures. It was acquired by Fox Interactive Media in 2007. In December 2009, Fox's parent company, News Corp, sold Photobucket to Seattle mobile imaging startup Ontela. Ontela then renamed itself Photobucket Inc. and continues to operate as Photobucket.
ImageShack is a subscription-based image hosting website headquartered at Los Gatos, California.
Twitter, rebranding to X since July 2023, is an online social media and social networking service operated by the American company X Corp., the successor of Twitter, Inc. On Twitter, registered users can post texts, images and videos. Users can post (tweet), like, repost, comment and quote posts, and direct message other registered users. Users interact with Twitter through browser or mobile frontend software, or programmatically via its application programming interfaces (APIs).
TinyPic was a photo- and video-sharing service owned and operated by Photobucket.com that allowed users to upload, link, and share images and videos on the Internet. The idea was similar to URL shortening, in that each uploaded image was given a relatively short internet address. An account was not required to use TinyPic.
Seesmic was a suite of freeware web, mobile, and desktop applications which allowed users to simultaneously manage user accounts for multiple social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter.
TwitPic was a website and app that allowed users to post pictures to the Twitter microblogging service, which at the time of TwitPic's creation could not be posted to Twitter directly. TwitPic was often used by citizen journalists to upload and distribute pictures in near real-time as an event was taking place.
Posterous was a simple blogging platform started in May 2008. It supported integrated and automatic posting to other social media tools such as Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook, a built-in Google Analytics package, and custom themes. It was based in San Francisco and funded by Y Combinator.
Pearltrees is a visual and collaborative curation tool that allows users to organize, explore and share any URL they find online as well as to upload personal photos, files and notes. The product features a visual interface that allows users to drag and organize collected URLs, and other digital objects that themselves can be further organized into collections and sub-collections, (URLs). Users of the product can also engage in social/collaborative curation using a feature called Pearltrees Teams.
Instagram, LLC is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location — via geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed.
Heello was an online social networking service and microblogging service launched in August 2011, and owned and operated by Heello Inc. Heello enabled its users to send and read text-based posts and to share pictures and videos. Heello was founded by Noah Everett, exactly one day after Twitter rolled out its official photo-sharing app. Heello is financed by the money generated by TwitPic through online advertising. Within the first day, there were about average 4 Pings a second. On 12 August 2011, Noah Everett reported that Heello had reached 1 million Pings in just 2 days.
Color Labs, Inc. was a start-up based in Palo Alto, California, US. Its main product was the eponymous mobile app for sharing photos through social networking. It allowed people to take photos in addition to viewing other photos also taken in the vicinity. The application grouped photos based on a user's friends so that he or she is more likely to see more relevant ones.
Ribbon was a San Francisco payments startup that lets users sell online using a shortened URL that can be shared across email, social media and a seller's own website. The service focuses on bring integrated checkouts directly to platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter letting buyers purchase without leaving those services.
Moment.me was a web service and application that collected all of the pics, videos and tweets from everyone at a single event to allow users to see a complete panoramic view of what happened at that event, from multiple points of view, and in real time.
Topsy Labs was a social search and analytics company based in San Francisco, California. The company was a certified Twitter partner and maintained a comprehensive index of tweets, numbering in the hundreds of billions, dating back to Twitter's inception in 2006.
The history of X can be traced back to a brainstorming session at Odeo.
Mixbook is a photo story platform based in Redwood City, California. Mixbook's service allows customers to design customized photo books, cards, calendars, canvas prints and photo prints through its online interface. Mixbook derives its revenues by printing customized photo products and shipping it to customers.
