Update: See follow-up post here with comments from ImageShack CEo Jack Levin.
If you had to name the top five image-hosting services on the Web, would ImageShack be one of them? It turns out that it is No. 5 in worldwide visitors, with nearly 28 million last March, according to comScore. (Ranked above it are Facebook Photos, Flickr, Picasa, and PhotoBucket). You might be more familiar with ImageShack’s familiar frog logo, which appears on many of the photos it hosts across the Web.
Sequoia Capital is familiar with ImageShack and its frog. Although it hasn’t been disclosed anywhere, a reliable source tells us that Sequoia recently invested in the company. Sequoia’s investment is believed to be in the $10 million range.
Up until now, ImageShack was entirely self-funded by founder Jack Levin, who built the service himself with his brother and a few part-time employees. The company claims it is already turning a profit (it charges an $8 a month subscription fee for unlimited image uploads). Levin was employee No. 25 or 26 at Google. He was the engineer who built Google’s early server clusters and self-healing architecture. At ImageShack, he has taken a similar approach to creating a site that serves 2.5 billion images a day.
Placing ads on just a fraction of those images could become a much more lucrative business than trying to upsell subscriptions, and that apparently is why Sequoia invested. Figuring out how to put ads in or around images on the Web is a big opportunity. It is a problem that Google (another company Sequoia invested in) is working on. Just earlier today at the Google Factory Tour, for instance, the company noted that hundreds of millions of image searches are done on Google every day and that it is experimenting with both display and text ads paired with image search results. But it is having a tough time.
Someone is going to figure out how to serve relevant ads on all those billions of images on the Web. Sequoia is betting that person will be a former Google employee rather than a current one.
What percentage of users use this service to post pornography??
How is relevant advertising going to be effective under those circumstances….I would like to see how low the click through rates are…
Good job, Jack.
-T
Way to go Jack. Congratulations on the new expansion money
ImageShack rocks. They serve sell, they serve freely, and they do other great things. Their torrent download service is spectacular, and again, free. Great stuff.
I m sure Image shack will go a long way …..
Good luck !!!
most trafficked .us domain, not that it matters.
wow, 28M visitors a month, that is impressive considering all the other photos sharing and networking sites out there. and serving 2.5 billion images a day? this is a gold mine. I’m surprise they haven’t found a way to really monetize the eye balls.
—————–
finding customers ain’t THAT hard
oneuseraday.com
Erick -
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....e-img-tag/
@ Sarah (1)
I can assume that 80% of all pics uploaded on ImageShack are pornography. ImageShack is widely used to upload porn, and then these pics are posted on Forums.
@ all
ImageShack does not allow you to upload unlimited files for free, there is an $8/month subscription for that !
And each image size is limited to 3MB even if you are a registered member
For non-registered users the limit is 1.5MB
This sucks !
Be prepared for FotoKong ! It is a new start-up founded by two young 19yr old students. It will allow unlimited uploads and each photo will be limited to 5 MB, which is 2MB more than ImageShack. So that Professional Photographers can upload their Photos too. And all for free !
It will have many more features to compete with PhotoBucket and Flickr !
Coming Soon !
FotoKong,
Founder and CEO
Ghaus Iftikhar
And oh yeah… one more thing.
This might seem off-topic, when FotoKong will launch this Golden Frog will turn Brown !
FotoKong,
Founder and CEO
Ghaus Iftikhar
@Ghaus
For all the horn blowing, not including a URL to your site is a SELF PROMO FAIL.
Pixelshrink had this technology already. They had a system that would attach ads around images. Then all of the sudden the site went down. I think they’re in development. Maybe the technology behind got purchased.
Was a good service when I was using it in early 2006.
i found good tool for upload images to imageshack it’s ImagePut (http://www.vidroid.com/imageput/) also i use ImagePut for generate web albums see http://www.vidroid.com/imageput/templates/
I’ve made casual attempts to find porno content on user accounts in public, but as these are most all hidden account item types, the presence does not appear. Serious looking might find it.
I used the service for the entire time they have been operating, and even when I pay for the account, I am restricted to just 1.45MB for common file types such as JPG and GIF, and the PNG files are always downsized and degraded in resolution quality to about 70-80 percent.
The JPG and GIF’s are first rate at about 100% to the ~1.45MB limit. Even many attempts to direct contact arrange for 3MB limits didn’t get a constructive response. I offered to pay for two account subscriptions, $16-20 per month, to no avail. They refuse to make a constructive response at any cost. The ~$200 per year offer should have been reasonable for the storage, but something is wrong in the mix, somewhere.
I admit that the quality is already jepardized by a requirement that ads be acceptable on a paid account image service as it is run currently, and this news really brings a ‘big stick’ into the mixture of service and lack of service. I may try to write again, but what could they want other than $$$? A voluntary user switch to allow or refuse ads on paid accounts would be a great solution for my use, but upon adding that to my requests I received no response again. My only response was 1 email offering the routine FAQ’s page as a ‘blind loop’ to prevent resolve.
This could be a fine quality image service with a series of stepped accounts, and ads on the bulk through a voluntary user account switch, made manditory for the free account users if needed by Imageshack.us
The size limits and the lack of full quality prevents serious photo use of the service. The claim of 3MB is bogus. MySpace is using the same bogus offers, and gives only a sub-postcard sized degraded images which cannot be useful for any serious use.
At Imageshack the size is kept until the file size limit is reached(~1.45MB, not 3MB), even with paid accounts.
Some of the ad’s last year were spooky ’scare’ tactic and shock distraction ads. Not what a serious artist or professional would associate with by choice.
I am hoping for a cleaner look and better service parameters soon.