Piczo

Piczo.com
Blog company
Industry Social networking
Founded 2003
Founder Jim Conning [1]
Defunct November 2012
Headquarters San Francisco, California
Key people
 Christofer Båge (CEO of current Piczo owner PMGcom Publishing AB),[2] Mattias Miksche (board member, PMGcom Publishing AB),[2] Daniel Lövquist (board member, PMGcom Publishing AB)[2]
Website piczo.com

Piczo was a social networking and blogging website for teens. It was founded in 2003 by Jim Conning in San Francisco, California. Early investors included Catamount, Sierra Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, and Mangrove Capital Partners.[3]

In March 2009, Piczo was acquired by Stardoll (Stardoll AB with CEO Mattias Miksche).[4] After the acquisition Piczo was led by Stardoll's CEO Mattias Miksche and his Stardoll team.[4]

In September 2012, Piczo.com was acquired by Posh Media Group (PMGcom Publishing AB with CEO Christofer Båge).[5][6][7][8]

In November 2012, Piczo.com shut down. [9]

Their eponymous service, also called Piczo (Piczo.com), was an online photo website builder and community, which is for generation of free advertising-supported websites. Piczo, launched in 2005, allowed users to add images, text, guestbooks, message boxes, videos, music and other content to their site using plain text and HTML. Partners included YouTube, VideoEgg, Photobucket, Flock, Yahoo & PollDaddy. When it began, the company's focus was individual webpage design, and blogs were not included as a feature. In addition to the website development aspect of the site, Piczo once had a User Generated Content repository, the Piczo Zone, where users can browse, post, and consume content that they or others have used on their site. Later on, Piczo remodeled the entire site, and this along with many other features were no longer available. One of the features that stayed is "The Board" where Piczo informs users about HTML and Internet safety, though most pages are designed for the old Piczo. In August 2010 Piczo announced "Piczo Plus," a feature that allows users to buy an "ad-free" site, which is no longer available to purchase.

Popularity

Piczo saw around 10 million unique visitors a month. While primarily offering services in English and German. Piczo was also available in French, Spanish, Romanian, Russian, Japanese, and Korean BETA versions.[9]

The service was very popular with a teenage audience in Britain, much like Bebo. Its popularity waned as social networking services such as Facebook, with the ability to create a profile, began to grow more popular than those where one would create a full-blown website.

In 2012, Piczo PLC closed down permanently.

References

  1. ↑ Software engine developer
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 http://www.allabolag.se/5567253892/befattningar
  3. ↑ Piczo Corporate Site
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/09/social-networking-sites-piczo-stardoll
  5. ↑ http://pic3.piczo.com/public/corporate/index.jsp
  6. ↑ http://www.linkedin.com/company/posh-media-group
  7. ↑ http://cdnimg.piczo.com/static/FAQ/impressum.html
  8. ↑ http://pic2.piczo.com/public/piczo2/piczoTerms.jsp
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Official website

External links