2009
Facebook reaches 300
million users in 2009,
popularizes photo-
sharing and tagging.
Apple’s smartphone launches in
2007. Within 4 years they will sell
nearly 130 million units.
Photo Sharing
1980s
factors contributing to the boom:
20 years ago the process of taking, processing, and distributing
a photo could take weeks or longer. Now, mobile apps such as
Instagram allow us share photos in seconds. What follows is a brief
history of photo sharing—where we’ve been and where we’re going.
O
ctOber
2011
Death of a Legend
M
arch
2011
Fukushima nuclear disaster
S P E C I A L T H A N K S T O
@semil and @techcrunch
the history of
The storage layer chronicles the
physical (hardware) component of
photo storage and sharing.
The host layer chronicles the
online dimension of photo
storage and sharing.
The app layer chronicles the mobile component
of photo storage and sharing—paying particular
attention to mobile applications (“apps”).
CDs and CD players debut in the 1980s,
become standard in PCs in the 1990s.
Widespread use of email began
in 1980s—perfect for quickly
exchanging digital images!
1990s
DVDs were developed in the
early 1990s and became widely
available in 1998.
Blogger launches in 1999. It
was one of the earliest blogging
tools and is credited for helping
popularize the format. Blogger was
acquired by Google in 2003.
The rst cell phone picture was
sent in 1997 by Phillipe Kahn using
a jury-rigged cell phone. The rst
commercially available camera phone
was the “J-SH04” and came on the
market in late 2000.
In the 1990s, a number of small
memory card formats arrived on the
market including CompactFlash,
SmartMedia, and the “Miniature
Card.” By the 2000s, most digital
cameras supported memory cards.
Shuttery, the web-based photo
sharing and printing platform
launches in 1999.
2000
IBM began selling the rst USB
ash drives commercially in 2000.
Snapsh, the web-based photo sharing
and printing service, launches in 2000.
Snapsh was acquired by HP in 2005.
By 2011 Snapfish had
90 million users.
2002
In 2002, “Picasa” was launched by
Idealab as an image organizer that
was integrated with a photo-sharing
website. Picasa was acquired by
Google in 2004.
2003
Photobucket launches in 2003, helps
to pioneer social image sharing. In
2007, just four years after its launch,
Photobucket had 50 million users.
Android, Inc. was founded in 2003
and began developing software for
mobile phones. In 2005 Android was
acquired by Google.
In 2011, Twitter announced a
partnership with Photobucket,
making Photobucket the default
photo sharing platform for Twitter.
Flickr was launched in 2004 by
Ludicorp. In 2005, Yahoo acquired
Ludicorp and Flickr for a reported
$35 million.
In 2010, it was reported
that Flickr was hosting
more than 5 billion images.
Facebook, originally dubbed “The
Facebook” launches in 2004.
In 2010, Facebook was seeing
more than 100 million photo
uploads every day.
2005
Panoramio, a geolocation-oriented
photo sharing site, launches in
October. Panoramio was acquired
by Google in 2007.
By 2007, Panoramio
had archived more
than 5 million photos.
2006
Twitter quietly launches in 2006. By
the end of 2007, more 1.6 million
tweets were generated by Twitter.
In 2011, Twitter saw 100 million
active users each month, half of
which logged in every day.
2007
Tumblr, the microblogging platform,
launches in 2007.
By May 2011, over 5 billion
blog posts had been made
on the Tumblr platform.
In 2007 a major distribution of
the open source mobile operating
system “Android” is unveiled along
with the founding of the Open
Handset Alliance.
the mobile sharing boom begins
Major launches of
smartphones and smartphone
operating systems.
Major improvements in the
quality of smartphone hardware
(camera, processor, etc.).
Improvements in network/cellular
speeds. Debut of cloud storage
products for delivery/access of photos.
2008
In 2008, TwitPic kicked o the Twitter
photo sharing phenomenon. Dozens
of copycats hurry to pile on.
Posterous, the super-simple blogging
platform, launches in 2008.
2009
Dailybooth launches in 2009 as
a photoblogging site for users to
take a photo of themselves every
day with a caption.
By 2010, Dailybooth had
seen a total of 3 million
photo uploads.
In 2009 Foodspotting launches
an online platform to share and
recommend specic food dishes
via photos. They launch an iPhone
app in 2010.
Foursquare, the location-based social
networking site for mobile devices,
launches in 2009, adds improved
photo-sharing capabilities in 2011.
Foursquare grew 3400%
in 2010, and by 1/2011
had 6 million users.
2010
Instagram launches in 2010 as an app
for the iPhone which allows you to
quickly take a picture, apply a number
of dierent lters, and share it.
The popularity of Instagram and Picplz (and others)
could very well be because of their ability to easily
manipulate, edit, and overlay cool lters on photos—
all within the application.
instant image editing
“Picplz,” the location-centric photo
streaming service developed by Mixed
Media Labs (founded in 2010), allows
you to upload photos, apply a number
of dierent eects and share them.
“Path” and “Color” are two good examples of
how the privacy of mobile sharing apps can be
approached dierently. Path, for example, is a
relatively private platform—generally allowing
only your closest 50 friends to eavesdrop on your
sharing. Color, on the other hand, originally allowed
anyone within a certain distance to see your photos.
privacy of social sharing
Path launches in 2010. Seeks to
help “capture life’s most personal
moments with photos – add
context of people, places, and
things – and share them with your
50 closest friends and family.”
2011
With $41 million in the bank, Color
Labs launches the much hyped,
location-based, photo-sharing app
for the iPhone in March.
In July, rumors emerge of a
possible native Facebook photo-
sharing app.
Google launches Photovine for the
iPhone in August, which centers
around community storytelling.
Twitter partners with Photobucket,
rolls out it’s photo-sharing feature to
the masses in August.
In August, EyeEM launches an app for
iPhone and Android that allows you to
take photos, apply lters, and tag not
just your location, but also what you
were doing in each photo.
GLMPS launches for the iPhone in
August, allows users to post “visual
status updates” on social networks.
Color Labs pivots in September, and
debuts a new photo-sharing app that
is deeply integrated with Facebook.
In October, Mobli (a real-time
sharing platform highlighting usage
by celebrities), gets $4 million in
funding from notable investors
including Leonardo DiCaprio.
Launching for iPhone and
Android in October, Pose oers
a mobile platform for real-time
discovery and sharing of fashion,
shopping and style.
Pivot
The photo-sharing market is ripe for innovation, and the future is looking bright.
Postagram debuted in 2011, allowing you to print and ship photos you’ve taken
with Instagram. Metalayer has an API that can be used for auto-tagging and
indexing the objects within your photos, which is already helping to springboard
new developments of apps and image search technology.
what’s next?
?
Significantly improving the speed and
reliability of wireless networks, 3G
becomes commercially available in
North America in 2005. By 2007, there
was nearly 300 million worldwide
subscribers on 3G networks.
3g
I Can Has Cheezburger? (ICHC)
launches in 2007, popularizes animal
based image macros and “lolspeak.”
In 2007 it was determined that global
data storage (including PC hard
drives, disc-based media, etc.) had
reached nearly 300 exabytes (about
300 million terabytes).
2002 is marked as the first year in
which worldwide digital storage
capacity overtook it’s analog
counterpart.
2004
Shutterfly and others
make it easy to
self-publish photos.
Photo Sharing
Photo Sharing
2001
Apple’s portable media player
launches in 2001. By 2004, the
iPod supported picture viewing.
Wikipedia, the free, web-based
encyclopedia launches in 2001. By the
end of 2001 Wikipedia was hosting
20,000 articles. Flying under the
“Creative Commons” banner, Wikipedia
(and sister projects) explicitly allows
the reuse of its content—including its
photos—to varying degrees.
2000
—
The first
camera phone!
2001-2002
Cameras such as the
Fuji Finepix 2600
contributed to a boom
in digital camera sales.
2004
J
anuary
2011
Ted Williams and his “Golden
Voice” captivate the internet
- Picture of J-SH04 courtesy of Morio/Wikipedia.
- Picture of Fuji FinePix 2600 courtesy of dcresource.com.
- Picture of Photobook courtesy of aboyandhisbike/Flickr.
- Picture of Facebook signage courtesy of Paul Sakuma/AP.
- Picture of Fukushima courtesy of Digital Globe/Wikipedia.
- Picture of Ted Williams courtesy of AP.
- Picture of Steve Jobs tribute courtesy of Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters.
Sources (abbreviated):
http://www.macworld.com/article/156515/2011/01/the_history_of_digital_cameras.html
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalcameras/photos-the-history-of-the-digital-camera-49293172/
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/computer_data_storage_through_ages
http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2011/08/25-photosharing-apps-a-list-in-development/
Photos taken from
Facebook’s
most shared
news stories of 201
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