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> These guys won the side-project lottery This is far from the truth. There was a clear demand for free image hosting that is easy to work with, and imgur fit

> These guys won the side-project lottery This is far from the truth. There was a clear demand for free image hosting that is easy to work with, and imgur fit the bill.

carleverett 13y ago
That doesn't mean it wasn't a side project. I'm not sure, but I'll bet Alan Schaaf got pretty deep into Imgur before he quit his day job for it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Dru89 13y ago
  I think nonchalance is arguing more to the point that this was not a "lottery winner." It was a good idea from the start, because it filled a need people actually knew about, instead of filling a need that people didn't know they had yet.
  - carleverett 13y ago
    Ahh poor reading on my behalf. Valid point, although many people build side projects that fulfill a valid need that never get adapted. You usually don't have the luxury of a marketing budget or the time to promote your idea effectively when it's just your side project. Then again that's the beauty of Reddit - 1 front page post = 10's of thousands of hits.
  - codexon 13y ago
    It was a need that people had, but there was no chance of making a profit without the good will of Reddit users trying to help them get ad views and bury submissions from other image dumps. The founder also made a thread claiming it was a "gift" to Reddit while also saying the same thing to Digg.
- Mizza 13y ago
  I've met Alan a few times - he told me he was in college when he started it, and the original imgur was run off of a server in his dorm room, and he later moved to a CDN run by somebody else he met on reddit. He's a cool guy, really humble on the rumble.
SwellJoe 13y ago
I remember the post that launched imgur. It really was a scratch your own itch kind of thing. So many redditors complained about the crappy image sharing sites...lots of them were verboten to use on reddit because they were so spammy, or slow, or whatever. There was no clear leader in the image sharing space. Facebook was impossible (because it wants to own every user and won't let you show someone something without logging in), even if it were an acceptable place to upload weird random pictures (I know many people who do, but they just don't know about reddit and imgur yet). So...imgur's founder saw a very clear need, and humbly pointed redditors to it. It took off because it was amazing in its simplicity and sincerity. imgur's founder clearly wanted you to share funny pictures in imgur, even if he couldn't figure out how to make it pay him money for every image. He just wanted to solve a very real problem that caused millions of people tiny amounts of pain. (When picking a problem, pick one that causes either a few people a lot of pain, or one that causes a lot of people a little bit of pain. You're unlikely to find a problem that causes a lot of people a lot of pain, since those are already usually very competitive.)
- timdiggerm 13y ago
  > Facebook was impossible (because it wants to own every user and won't let you show someone something without logging in) Well that's not true. Just get the image url and you're good to go.
  - code_duck 13y ago
    Facebook denies images based on their privacy controls even if you are viewing a .jpg URL. People try to share those links often on a forum on which I'm a member, and when you view the link not logged in to FB or not connected to the proper proper 'friend', you receive a 'this content is not currently available' message.
- yxhuvud 13y ago
  Well, they are either very competetive or extremely hard to solve. Think cancer.
  - 13y ago
erichurkman 13y ago
Others tried and largely failed. Min.us, photobucket, ... were all OK at 10 or 20 viewers, but when you hit the front page, the top-rated post was an Imgur mirror that [usually] responded to direct .png/.jpg links without fault.
lazyjones 13y ago
> There was a clear demand for free image hosting that is easy to work with, and imgur fit the bill. There are plenty of these around, so I doubt it was being free and simple that made them "win" (we have an ad-free one with even simpler UI, for example). There were 2 factors that contributed most to their success in my opinion: a) being used much on Reddit, b) being awesome at implementing many useful, well-designed features. Without a), they would probably still have won this race, but at a much slower pace.
- Terretta 13y ago
  On the contrary: - low latency (images served instantly) - no ads (initially) - upload, get link Initially there were zero features. The pace was entirely based on serving images fast. Everything else you think of imgur came later.

> These guys won the side-project lottery This is far from the truth. There was a clear demand for free image hosting that is easy to work with, and imgur fit the bill.

carleverett 13y ago

That doesn't mean it wasn't a side project. I'm not sure, but I'll bet Alan Schaaf got pretty deep into Imgur before he quit his day job for it.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Dru89 13y ago
I think nonchalance is arguing more to the point that this was not a "lottery winner." It was a good idea from the start, because it filled a need people actually knew about, instead of filling a need that people didn't know they had yet.
- carleverett 13y ago
  Ahh poor reading on my behalf. Valid point, although many people build side projects that fulfill a valid need that never get adapted. You usually don't have the luxury of a marketing budget or the time to promote your idea effectively when it's just your side project. Then again that's the beauty of Reddit - 1 front page post = 10's of thousands of hits.
- codexon 13y ago
  It was a need that people had, but there was no chance of making a profit without the good will of Reddit users trying to help them get ad views and bury submissions from other image dumps. The founder also made a thread claiming it was a "gift" to Reddit while also saying the same thing to Digg.
Mizza 13y ago
I've met Alan a few times - he told me he was in college when he started it, and the original imgur was run off of a server in his dorm room, and he later moved to a CDN run by somebody else he met on reddit. He's a cool guy, really humble on the rumble.

SwellJoe 13y ago

I remember the post that launched imgur. It really was a scratch your own itch kind of thing. So many redditors complained about the crappy image sharing sites...lots of them were verboten to use on reddit because they were so spammy, or slow, or whatever. There was no clear leader in the image sharing space. Facebook was impossible (because it wants to own every user and won't let you show someone something without logging in), even if it were an acceptable place to upload weird random pictures (I know many people who do, but they just don't know about reddit and imgur yet). So...imgur's founder saw a very clear need, and humbly pointed redditors to it. It took off because it was amazing in its simplicity and sincerity. imgur's founder clearly wanted you to share funny pictures in imgur, even if he couldn't figure out how to make it pay him money for every image. He just wanted to solve a very real problem that caused millions of people tiny amounts of pain. (When picking a problem, pick one that causes either a few people a lot of pain, or one that causes a lot of people a little bit of pain. You're unlikely to find a problem that causes a lot of people a lot of pain, since those are already usually very competitive.)

timdiggerm 13y ago
> Facebook was impossible (because it wants to own every user and won't let you show someone something without logging in) Well that's not true. Just get the image url and you're good to go.
- code_duck 13y ago
  Facebook denies images based on their privacy controls even if you are viewing a .jpg URL. People try to share those links often on a forum on which I'm a member, and when you view the link not logged in to FB or not connected to the proper proper 'friend', you receive a 'this content is not currently available' message.
yxhuvud 13y ago
Well, they are either very competetive or extremely hard to solve. Think cancer.
- 13y ago

erichurkman 13y ago

Others tried and largely failed. Min.us, photobucket, ... were all OK at 10 or 20 viewers, but when you hit the front page, the top-rated post was an Imgur mirror that [usually] responded to direct .png/.jpg links without fault.

lazyjones 13y ago

> There was a clear demand for free image hosting that is easy to work with, and imgur fit the bill. There are plenty of these around, so I doubt it was being free and simple that made them "win" (we have an ad-free one with even simpler UI, for example). There were 2 factors that contributed most to their success in my opinion: a) being used much on Reddit, b) being awesome at implementing many useful, well-designed features. Without a), they would probably still have won this race, but at a much slower pace.

Terretta 13y ago
On the contrary: - low latency (images served instantly) - no ads (initially) - upload, get link Initially there were zero features. The pace was entirely based on serving images fast. Everything else you think of imgur came later.