Photobucket
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Photobucket | |
|---|---|
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| URL | http://www.photobucket.com |
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Image Hosting Service |
| Registration | Required |
| Owner | Fox Interactive Media |
| Created by | Alex Welch Darren Crystal |
| Launched | 2003 |
| Current status | Active |
Photobucket is an image hosting, video hosting, slideshow creation and photo sharing website. It was founded in 2003 by Alex Welch and Darren Crystal and received funding from Trinity Ventures.[1][2] It was acquired by Fox Interactive Media in 2007.
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[edit] Features
Photobucket is usually used for personal photographic albums, remote storage of avatars displayed on internet forums, and storage of videos. Photobucket's image hosting is often used for eBay, MySpace (now a corporate cousin), Bebo, Neopets and Facebook accounts, LiveJournals or other blogs, and message boards. Users may keep their albums private, allow password-protected guest access, or open them to the public.
Photobucket advertises 99.9% uptime, and offers 1 GB free storage (5 GB with paid PRO account), 25 GB free monthly bandwidth (unlimited with paid account). Uploaded photos must be smaller than 1 MB (5 MB with paid account), uploaded videos must be five minutes or shorter (10 min with paid account).
Photobucket does not allow sexually explicit content. Photobucket may drop content holders at their will for violating the TOS without giving any further details.[3]
Photobucket supports FTP uploads, but the user must be a Pro account holder.[4] Windows XP Publisher is supported as an alternative to FTP. It is available in free accounts.[5]
[edit] History
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Photobucket was named the fastest growing site of 2005 according to Nielsen/Netratings and now ranks as a Top 50 site by traffic according to ComScore.[6] As of mid-December, 2007 Photobucket claims to have over 5,000,000,000 (5 billion) images uploaded to their site. Since new members are constantly joining, this results in more simultaneous uploads and thus the rate at which the numbers climb is constantly increasing. In March, 2007 Photobucket had a market share of 41.4 percent of U.S. visits to photography web sites.[7] As of March 28, 2007 Fortune Magazine reports that Photobucket has 36 million registered users and adds 85,000 new users per day. Fortune Magazine claims that more users visit Photobucket each month than Facebook. 56% of users are under 35, and 52% are female.[8] According to TechCrunch, 300,000 unique websites link back to Photobucket.[9]
Photobucket's investment bank, Lehman Brothers, values the company at $300–$400 million or more.[9]
[edit] Acquisition by News Corporation
As of May 8, 2007, it was reported that Fox Interactive Media, a News Corporation subsidiary, were in advanced talks with Photobucket about a possible buyout. The price is rumored to be as high as $250 million US.[10] On May 30, Fox Interactive Media confirmed that it had bought Photobucket and Flektor in separate transactions.[11] Terms were not disclosed.
[edit] References
- ^ 2% of U.S. Internet Traffic goes through Photobucket
- ^ PhotoBucket Closes $10.5M From Trinity Ventures
- ^ Terms of Service - photobucket.com
- ^ Photobucket.com FAQ - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
- ^ Desktop Publisher - Publish content with XP Publisher: Photobucket.com
- ^ Europeans Flock to Photo and Real Estate Sites in August
- ^ PC World - Photobucket Rules its Market
- ^ http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/27/magazines/fortune/fastforward_photobucket.fortune/?postversion=2007032808 Fortune
- ^ a b http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/29/how-much-is-photobucket-worth/ TechCrunch
- ^ Fox Interactive Nears Deal to Buy Photobucket - New York Times
- ^ Fox Interactive buys Photobucket
