1. Abigail Coers
Advertising 400
Research Paper
30 September 2010
The History of Photobucket
Seven short years ago as digital photos became well-known, Alex Welch and Darren
Crystal developed a photo hosting site allowing individuals to share media with friends, family,
and the world wide web. Photobucket was founded as a way for people of all ages to store and
share photos and other media. In July 2007, Fox Interactive Media took over and in December
2009 Ontela, Inc merged to become Photobucket Corporation (Photobucket). Ontela, Inc. is a
way for mobile users to upload media straight from a wireless device to Photobucket
(Photobucket). As years progress and digital media is the new print photo, Photobucket is
constantly adding members on a daily basis.
The number one photo-sharing website is home to 22 million users monthly and 90 million
total registered users, including those with free memberships and those with paid memberships.
As a member of Photobucket, users are able to embed photos into websites, create numerous
albums, develop and share scrapbooks, and most commonly known for the ability to link photos
to social media sites.
Although a basic membership is free, Photobucket makes revenue by offering additional
features to members who choose the Pro account. Pro accounts include larger storage space,
longer videos, unlimited bandwidth, higher quality, and discounts on purchases from the
Photobucket store (CrunchBase). Alongside of Pro accounts, Photobucket also makes revenue by
advertisements. These advertisements can be seen throughout the website, especially on free
membership profiles/sites (Strickland). Users of the site include large and small businesses, all
ages of individuals, and families.
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2. Photobucket offers a solution to individuals who want to share, edit, or embed photos and
media into other websites. This media site does not solve any particular ‘problems’ the user may
have, but it does provide similar features as numerous other media sites. As other photo
uploading sites have evolved, competition is a factor that Photobucket has faced. The greatest
competition is Flickr which is a site that offers similar service as Photoshop (PhotoBucket
Overview).
The primary use of Photobucket is to share photos. Some companies use this service to
share photos of their business in order to gain publicity, while others store their photos, and still
other individuals edit them using the online program. The need of companies and individuals
placing photos on the web is solved with a unique URL for each photo.
Photobucket once changed the way people communicate via graphics online. Graphics were
not always easily accessible. Photobucket has created public albums for anyone visiting the site
to view and, depending on the copyright, use the photo .Individuals would have to be an expert
in photo editing to use software and if you needed a photo of a particular event, it required
actually attending and capturing the moment. With Photobucket, it is possible to simply log-in,
click upload, easily edit the photo, and share it with others or add it to another site. Photobucket
changed the way content is viewed among consumers.
Photobucket may take the blame for the decline in photo printing. A changing way of
viewing photos evolved from Photobucket. No longer do people have to leave their house or
even use paper and ink to show off their moments, but simply insert a camera chip to the
computer. The downside of making a photo album public for friends and family is that anyone
on the internet is able to view the photos. Due to this, privacy is an issue and individuals’
personal lives can simply be invaded.
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3. In 2008, Photobucket was hacked into by Turkish residents. They altered the
Photobucket homepage so upon entering the site, these users were instead directed to a site
written in Turkish language (Strickland). This re-directed site created by the hacker group, called
NetDeliz, greeted the Photobucket users that day on the re-directed page (Leyden). The message
only appeared for about one hour, however some users were affected for longer periods of time.
This crisis did not allow private information such as passwords and registration fields to be
released (Leyden).
Aside from the 2008 hacking, there have been no known security issues with
Photobucket. The privacy policy is located on the Photobucket website. It explains the security
of the site including encrypting of financial information and the use of secure socket layer (SSL)
to protect the user. With anything, it is extremely difficult to be fully safe, but Photobucket does
include in the privacy policy that they “…cannot ensure or warrant the security of any
information you submit to us and you do so at your own risk” (Photobucket). Photobucket is
mostly public information with the media that is uploaded; therefore threats are not a common
topic with the company.
Although problems from hacking into the site and stealing users information is not
expected in the upcoming years, other issues may arise concerning the size of membership. On a
daily basis, membership is increasing and media is uploaded. Individuals would think the greater
amount of media being stored on the site would slow Photobucket down, however this does not
seem to be the case. Photobucket does not issue any warnings or sightings of problems
occurring with the growing number of members.
If the rate of membership grows a substantial amount, Photobucket will work to maintain
the site to be the best among competitors such as Flickr (PhotoBucket Overview). Flickr and
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4. Photobucket are very similar when dealing with the basic components of uploading, storing, and
sharing photos. Among all, Photobucket has been very reliable in the past and trusted by users
since the start in 2003.
Users are able to use Photobucket for numerous ways concerning media. Some may
choose to upload the hours of video provided, share hundreds of photos, and also use the site as a
great place to land publicity for a company (PhotoBucket Overview). Corporations are able to
use Photobucket for the same reasons individuals use this site. Uploading a public photo or
video allows visitors to the site to view logos, events, photos, and video of the company. This
allows individuals who may not know about a corporation to gain knowledge about it. This is
also a great feature for corporations as well. If they are using the basic service, the publicity is
offered for free therefore the corporation has nothing to lose.
An educational institution could also use Photobucket for public relations work the same
way as a corporation. The photos not only could be viewed by the public, but they could also be
stored on Photobucket for use in other websites and programs. Educational institutions such as
the University of Illinois College of ACES uses a site similar to Photobucket. The site used is
called stock xchng. The College of ACES is able to store photos for use in publications and also
for viewing of the public. However, users are not always able to ‘copy and paste’ photos, but
need to go through a process in order to use these photos in their own work.
Non-profit institutions also are able to do public relations work with Photobucket. The free-
of-charge package makes a cheap way to get a name into the public. Non-profit institutions
should take advantage of this free service available. Non-profit organizations could easily use
the site for publicity among users. However, the site cannot be used to raise funds among
individuals or to do business with others. Individuals, corporations, educational institutions, and
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5. basically any other organization are able to use Photobucket for the use of storing and sharing
media.
Photobucket offers various features to members, and even better features to paying
memberships. Keeping the basic membership free, will increase the numbers of members and
help the site to keep the title of “the number one photo sharing website” (Photobucket).
Photobucket is easy-to-use and also easy to access photos being searched. On the home page of
the website, there are albums with headings such as “vintage funny,” “art,” “black and white,”
and more (Photobucket). These albums separate types of photos and edits into categories that
users may find interesting. This look and content of the web page creates a sense of organization
and fun to the site. The clean overall look of the site may be just one reason the public uses this
photo hosting site over others.
Being a member of Photobucket, I can speak about the ease of use. After uploading media, a
URL can be sent to family or friends to share photos and other media. I use this feature when I
want to share an album to someone who is miles away, but I do not want everyone to see my
pictures. Also, there is an option to embed photos, or add them to sites such as Facebook.
Photos are also able to be edited. This includes adding color, effects, and text. Albums on the
front page of Photobucket are examples of many edited photos.
Photobucket is a social media website that is capable of serving anyone with a need for
media. Whether one needs to simply store photos or would like to edit them to eventually create
prints, Photobucket is able to get the job done. Photobucket has proven itself to the public with a
safe website and positive feedback from members. The social media site, Photobucket, is user-
friendly, top-ranked, and has succeeded and continues to succeed with growth over the years and
years to come.
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7. Works Cited
"About Us." Photobucket., 2010. Web. 20 Sep 2010.
<http://www.photobucket.com/about>.
Leyden, John. "Photobucket tipped over by Turkish
hacker." The Register. 18 June 2008. Web. 20 Sep
2010.
< http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/18/photobucket_dns_hack/>.
"Photobucket (old)." CrunchBase, 2009. Web. 20
September 2010.
<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/photobucket
>.
"PhotoBucket Overview." Venture Beat Profiles, 2010.
Web. 20 Sep 2010.
<http://venturebeatprofiles.com/company/profile/p
hotobucket?search=simple>.
Strickland, Jonathan. "How Photobucket Works." Get
Stuff, 2010. Web. 20 Sep 2010.
<http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/socia
l-etworking/networks/photobucket.htm/printable>.
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