Webshots is a photo wallpaper and screensaver service owned and operated by Threefold Photos. It was also a photo sharing service from 1999 to 2012.

History

Webshots was created in 1995 by Auralis, Inc. in San Diego, California. It was initially a sports oriented screen saver sold at retail for desktop computers. Founders Andrew Laakmann, Danna Laakmann, Nick Wilder, and Narendra Rocherolle migrated the desktop software to the Web and became one of the earliest instances of

photo sharing A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitivity, photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. Th ...

found online. The Webshots Community launched in 1999 as the first photo sharing website with an emphasis on public sharing. In October 1999, Webshots was sold to Excite@Home for $82.5 million in stock. The service continued to grow and when Excite@Home declared bankruptcy at the end of 2001, the Webshots assets were purchased back by the founders for $2.5 million in cash. By 2001 Webshots became a profitable company with a combination of revenue streams that included advertising,

freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium", is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical ( ...

service, and merchandising. By 2004, Webshots was grossing $15M/year, had more than 200,000 paid subscribers, and was the #1 photo sharing site and top 50 media property per ComScore. In the same year,

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ranked Webshots the second largest English language privately held Web media property (behind weather.com). The company was sold to CNET Networks for $71 million in cash. During this period, new photo sharing services began to emerge to service different markets.

Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...

became popular with bloggers.

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

photos took over at universities.

Photobucket Photobucket is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community based in Denver, Colorado, United States. Photobucket once hosted more than 10 billion images from 100 million registered members. Li ...

became the default service on

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

and

SmugMug SmugMug is a paid image sharing, image hosting service, and online video platform on which users can upload photos and videos. The company also facilitates the sale of digital and print media for amateur and professional photographers. In 2018, ...

carved out a paid service for family albums and professional photographers. In autumn of 2007, CNET sold Webshots to

American Greetings American Greetings Corporation is a privately held American company and is the world's second largest greeting card producer behind Hallmark Cards. Based in Westlake, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland, the company sells paper greeting ...

for $45 million in cash. Webshots joined the American Greetings Interactive unit and was reunited with another former Excite@Home property—the eCard website Blue Mountain. In October 2012, American Greetings sold Webshots to Threefold Photos, Inc. The image hosting service was shut down two months later on December 1. Webshots relaunched as a photo sharing service called Smile by Webshots, but the service no longer exists. In May 2013, Threefold Photos introduced Webshots Wallpaper & Screensaver, a nod to the original service, which is a desktop application for

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and

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and comes with a sampler of free high-resolution professional photos. Subscribers have access to over 5,000 images, with new images published daily. Webshots also offers an app for Android and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

Webshots business models

Webshots has been in business since 1995 and has derived revenue from various services, including banner advertising, paid sponsorships, software bundling, branded downloads, client software advertising, co-registration deals, software sales, premium memberships, and print and gift merchandise sales. In 2010 American Greetings bundled Kiwee Toolbar with the Webshots Desktop and generated some complaints and controversy because of the toolbar's labeling as malware. It was unbundled in 2011. Webshots currently offers a free trial software version and a premium service (with monthly and annual options) which offers subscribers two new professional photos a day and complete access to a gallery of professional photos. Some pages of the webshots.com website also serve advertisements.

References

{{Reflist Chase Galbraith
"Ocean Beach Webshots is sold for $82 million"
''Cheap Website Designs Blog'', 25/06/2017

External links

Webshots.com
Image-sharing websites American photography websites Internet properties established in 1995 1995 establishments in California

History

Webshots business models

See also

References

External links