What constitutes a successful community website? There are many features that determine if I personally am willing to invest my time and emotions into an online community. These include the type of community, the entertainment value, how it operates, its corporate culture, functionality and the platforms it utilities. Imgur is an image hosting website that I believe objectively and subjectively fulfils these criteria. This subjective report will provide a personal and analysis of Imgur, and justify why I believe it is a well thought through and effective website that accomplishes both its user’s expectations and its company’s corporate objectives.
Background
Imgur is an image hosting service which is updated and maintained through user submitted content. It was founded by Alan Schaaf in 2009 (Slater-Robins, 2013). His intention were to create the web’s most popular image sharing site. Imgur was fostered through his own experiences with the popular news website Reddit, which provides its community with a place to discuss political issues (Slater-Robins, 2013). Reddit is known for not being visually pleasing and having a hard to navigate interface. Imgur was therefore created out of this unfulfilled demand in the market, providing the online community with an easier user experience, but with the same innovative content.
Business Model: Community
Imgur uses a community business model that facilitates the connection of millions of users around the globe. They currently have over 70 million devoted consumers visiting there site (Slater-Robins, 2013). Imgur has enabled a global village, where distances are negated, and opinions from all different cultures and countries come together to be shared. This has produced a likeminded subcult...
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... and loading speeds of Imgur. Altogether it provides its community with a safe place for social interaction of likeminded people. This Website not only meets its community’s expectations but also uses its community to meet its corporate objectives therefore creating a mutually beneficial relationship. I believe there are no negative aspects to this website.
Works Cited
Gruder, C. L. (1971). Determinants of social comparison choices. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,, 473-489.
Imgur. (2014). http://store.imgur.com/pages/privacy-policy. Retrieved from http://imgur.com/.
Pingdom. (2014). Pingdom Website Speed Test. Retrieved from Pingdom: http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/duFDXv/http://imgur.com/
Slater-Robins, M. (2013, April 21). From rags to riches: the story of Imgur. Retrieved from neowin: http://www.neowin.net/news/from-rags-to-riches-the-story-of-imgur
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Nair, M. (2011), Understanding and measuring the value of social media. J. Corp. Acct. Fin., 22: 45–51. doi: 10.1002/jcaf.20674
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Poeschl, G. (2001). Social comparison and differentiation strategies in social representations of intelligence. Swiss Journal of Psychology/Schweizerische Zeitschrift Für Psychologie/Revue Suisse De Psychologie, 60(1), 15-26.
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