Canvas Networks

Canvas Networks, Inc.
Web address canv.as
Commercial? Yes
Type of site
 Imageboard
Available in English
Owner Christopher "moot" Poole
Launched 2010
Alexa rank
 negative increase 266,663 (April 2014)[1]
Current status Closed

Canvas Networks was a website centered on sharing and remixing media, particularly images.[2] The website was founded by the owner of 4chan, Christopher Poole, and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures, Founder Collective, and Joshua Schachter.[3] It closed in 2014.[4][5][6]

Company and funding

Reports indicate that Canvas Networks received at least US$3.63 million in seed funding.[7][8] The site had seven employees[9] and was based in New York City.[10]

History

On January 31, 2011, Canvas officially opened, sending out invitations to users who had previously signed up to receive updates.[11] In March 2011, Canvas made its discussion threads viewable by users who were not registered, while remaining in closed beta status.[12] In early 2011, Poole began to virally market Canvas on sites such as Reddit.[13] Canvas moved from private beta to open beta on September 6, 2011, at which point Poole reported that over fifty thousand users had registered during the private beta period.[14][15] On January 21, 2014, the Canvas blog announced that the site was shutting down.[4][5][6] The Canvas team promised that users would be able to download their contributions to the site in the near future, and proposed the possibility of an archive of the site's old threads.[4]

Poole called his newer project, DrawQuest, "by all accounts a success", but noted that it had been created (in early 2013) "after the failure of our first product, Canvas".[16] He hoped to keep DrawQuest running for "a few more months".[17] Poole told TechCrunch that his team was "never able to crack the business side of things in time", that the value of their user community was not apparent to investors, and that they could not sufficiently monetize in-game purchases.[18]

Site features and purpose

Canvas was an imageboard that allows for anonymous and non-anonymous sharing and commenting on media,[19] as well as the "remixing" of posted images, and the adding of music to animated GIFs.[20] Unlike 4chan or other sites such as Reddit, Canvas had image editing tools built into it, negating the need for desktop editing programs like Adobe Photoshop in order to share with the site's community.[21] Poole's goal with the website was to "reimagine forums in a world where everyone has a fast, modern browser." He asserts that the central idea of Canvas is "play", where "photo, video, and audio is all interactive, malleable, and participatory."[22]

Though the site was intentionally separate from 4chan, it also emphasized anonymity,[19] and allowed people to post anonymously or using pseudonyms.[23] Despite the ability to act anonymously, the site received some criticism, especially from fans of 4chan, for at first offering Facebook Connect as the only signup mechanism.[24] It subsequently moved away from that policy.

Closure

On January 14 2015, founder Christopher Poole announced that the company was dissolved in December 2014 with the remaining funds being donated to charity.[25]

References

  1. ↑ "Canv.as Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-04-01.
  2. ↑ "Founder of a Provocative Web Site Forms a New Outlet". The New York Times. March 13, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Canvas Networks". Crunchbase.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "A very important note from Team Canvas". Canvas Blog. Retrieved January 28, 2014.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 D'Onfro, Jillian (January 21, 2014). "A Classy Way to Admit Your Startup is Dead". Business Insider. Retrieved January 28, 2014.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Welch, Chris (January 21, 2014). "4chan founder Chris Poole is shutting down Canvas and DrawQuest for iOS". The Verge. Retrieved January 28, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities". sec.gov. Securities and Exchange Commission.
  8. ↑ "Union Square Ventures Leads $3M Round In 4chan Founder Moot's New Startup Canvas". CrunchBase.
  9. ↑ "About Canvas".
  10. ↑ Watercutter, Angela (March 14, 2011). "4chan Philosophy: Christopher ‘moot’ Poole Calls Community the Killer App". Wired News.
  11. ↑ Introducing Canvas, January 31, 2011
  12. ↑ Threads are now public, March 25, 2011
  13. ↑ "4chan founder looks to Reddit for a new Canv.as community". VentureBeat.
  14. ↑ "Canvas, a grown-up 4chan, opens to the public". GigaOM. September 6, 2011.
  15. ↑ Hey Canvas, We’re opening up the site to the public today!, September 6, 2011
  16. ↑ Today my startup failed, January 21, 2014
  17. ↑ Sad news, January 21, 2014
  18. ↑ With Traction But Out Of Cash, 4chan Founder Kills Off Canvas/DrawQuest, January 21, 2014
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "4chan Creator Doubles Down on Web Anonymity With Canvas". The Atlantic. March 21, 2011.
  20. ↑ "Introducing Audio Remixes".
  21. ↑ "4chan founder looks to Reddit for a new Canv.as community". VentureBeat.
  22. ↑ Gobry, Pascal-Emmanuel (March 30, 2011). "4chan And Canvas Founder Moot Talks About His New Startup, What 4chan Does About Porn And The Future Of Online Identity". The San Francisco Chronicle.
  23. ↑ "Social Networking: Fighting to Remain Anonymous". BusinessWeek. March 17, 2011.
  24. ↑ Yin, Sara (March 14, 2011). "4chan Founder Launches 'Canvas' Community". PC Magazine.
  25. ↑ http://chrishateswriting.com/post/108080554943/a-pragmatists-startup-spin-down

External links