
PDF version of this report
You must have Adobe Acrobat reader to view, save, or print PDF files. The reader
is available for free
download.
Noteworthy Social Networks
Copyright 2021, Faulkner Information
Services. All Rights Reserved.
Docid: 00021013
Publication Date: 2104
Report Type: PRODUCT
Preview
When someone mentions social networks, the two that most likely
come to mind are Facebook and Twitter.
This duo has come to represent the current concept and ongoing thrust of social
networking through their dominance in usage figures and their leadership in the
creation and release of new trends and services. However,
there was a time not so many years ago when Twitter and even Facebook
were by no means household names. This report revolves around five social
networks that currently find themselves either in the same position Twitter and Facebook were in before they became the
most dominant general purpose social networks in the world, or in a unique position to impact the Web
as a whole due to owned assets or unusual levels of influence on the social
media category.1
This document will examine the founding and creation of the covered networks, the size and composition of their user base,
and analyze the strengths, weaknesses, and overall outlook of each contender for
the next "it" social network.
Report Contents:
Introduction and Criteria
[return to top of this report]
The five social networks covered here are not selected simply for
their current ranking on popularity charts or due to any particular measurement of
their monthly visitors. Rather, each was selected due to a combination of its
current user activity, what differentiates it from competing
offerings, and a selection of less tangible factors that make a social network
worthy of being called noteworthy rather than simply one that will live its entire
lifespan as a middle-of-the-road contender. With these criteria in mind, the top
five social networks worth watching today, in no particular order, are: Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr, and LinkedIn. These candidates for the next
big social network come from a variety of backgrounds, with some having been
created as a mobile app, while others have a much stronger presence on the desktop.
However, all are accessible via desktop Web
browser, the mobile Web, and official mobile apps for all major mobile
operating systems. Below is an examination of each, including
a brief description and introduction followed by a deeper dive into their areas of focus.
Figure 1. Pinterest’s Logo
- Founding: Pinterest was created in 2009 by co-founders Ben
Silbermann, Evan Sharp, and Paul Sciarra. It reached prototype form
in 2010 when it began to be tested by a small group of friends and
family of the co-founders. Following a public launch later in 2010 and
several rounds of third-party funding in 2011 and 2012 from investors such
as Japanese retailer Rakuten, the site began to flourish, receiving a $1.5
billion valuation in 2012.2
This rapid growth trend has continued through today, with Pinterest having
skyrocketed from a $5 billion valuation in 2014. However, since the
company’s 2019 IPO, its value has been in a greater state of flux, with it
largely underperforming expectations. - Description: Pinterest is often described as a "virtual
scrapbooking" Web site. The primary purpose of its offerings, like most
social networks, is to help users share something on the Web with friends and strangers. However, unlike Facebook or Twitter, the topic of most
material shared is not the user’ life but external interests
such as art, design, fashion, home decor, and any product or creation that
catches a user's eye. These findings live on a user's "Pinboard" where they
can be seen by other users, commented on, and re-shared. Once a users
collection of "Pins" begins to grow, they can divide their interests into
several Pinboards, giving each a theme or timeframe in order to better organize
their interests and ideas. To ease the process of creating a new pin,
Pinterest has its own equivalent of Facebook's "Like" button, the "Pin it"
button. This can be found on many of the most trafficked sites on the Web
and is a quick, nearly ubiquitous way for users to share their finds. - Global Ranking: Pinterest is currently ranked 143rd
among all Web sites globally and 88th among all Web sites in the US.3
It's user demographic skews heavily towards female users, with a generally
even distribution among education levels. However, users report accessing
the site much more frequently from school than from home or work. - Site Analysis
- Strengths: Pinterest may be the closest contender
on this list to the likes of Facebook and Twitter, ranking 4th behind
only these two and LinkedIn in the most recent Alexa figures.4 Widespread adoption
of the "Pin it" button, along with high-profile users such as Michelle Obama,
has led to wide exposure for the social network. Popularity is obviously important, but it
doesn't necessarily translate to a promising future if the business in
question does not have a clear revenue stream. Thankfully for Pinterest,
it has one of the clearest of any social network on the list. The site
does not rely on banner ads in the traditional fashion. Instead, it
allows companies and marketers to post promoted Pins. This practice,
which is becoming more popular on other sites, allows commercial
entities to get their product in front of users without the need for a
jarring banner ad. This results in a typically more positive ad exposure
than an intrusive, traditional online advertisement. In fact,
one study claims that Pinterest reaches not only 23.5 percent of the
entire US population, but a massive 83 percent of Women aged 25 to 54, a
prime advertising demographic.5 - Weaknesses: Pinterest has a
constant battle on its hands in the form of copyrighted content.
Although the site has a system in place for copyright owners to request
a Pin be taken down, the site must constantly monitor its pages. Thankfully, it is protected somewhat
by the DMCA's Safe Harbor provision, but this does not completely remove
the possibility that a lawsuit could arise from the posting of a
particularly sensitive piece of copyrighted material. This became such a
concern for Pinterest that the site developed an HTML meta tag that
could be placed in the underlying code of a Web site, preventing that
page from ever being shared on Pinterest's profiles. However, if a Web
developer does not use that code or does not even know it exists, it
affords little protection to copyright holders or the social network
itself. - Future Outlook: Despite its
ongoing copyright issues, Pinterest's future looks very promising.
The site still has a very low level of ad placements when compared to
the likes of Twitter and Facebook, and it finds itself in possession of a
business model that could not have been designed to be any more
promotion-friendly. This means that there is plenty of room for the
social network to grow its marketing presence, and, simultaneously, its
revenue stream. A large part of the company’s fortunes are less certain
since its 2019 IPO. The social network’s share prices have fluctuated
dramatically at times, and it has not, so far, lived up to the wild
expectations for its performance. However, as Facebook’s infamously rocky start as a publicly traded
company showed, not all well-hyped social networking initial offerings
go smoothly.
- Strengths: Pinterest may be the closest contender
Figure 2. Instagram’s Logo
- Founding: Instagram's story begins with the creation of
the Burbn mobile app by Instagram’s now CEO
Kevin Systrom. Shortly after launching Burbn, which was itself a social
networking application, Systrom joined with Mike Krieger to create a new app
that focused entirely on mobile photography. That app was named Instagram
after a combination of the words "instant camera" and "telegram."6
The official launch of Instagram as a mobile app took place in October 2010.
Growth came quickly for the photo sharing app, with one million users reached
before the end of 2010, followed by five million by the middle of 2011, and
more than 30 million only one year later. Instagram's moment to shine
came later in 2012 when it was acquired by Facebook. The $1 billion
transaction was one of the largest of its kind to that point and gave the
photo sharing service more than enough cash to grow. The results of this massive bankroll were immediate and
dramatic, with continual growth pushing the platform’s most recent average
monthly user estimates at over one billion .7 - Description: As stated above, Instagram began its life
as a mobile app. However, it quickly grew to include both a mobile and
desktop Web-based presence and quickly became synonymous with the sharing
of photos in a way that even parent company Facebook and competitor Twitter cannot claim. The app
functions by allowing users to utilize their mobile device camera to snap
photos of whatever they like. These photos were originally captured in a somewhat unique
4:3 aspect ratio, lending them something of the look of an old Polaroid
image. This resemblance was further enhanced by the inclusion of Instagram's
trademark photo filters. These image treatments include everything from
black and white to sepia to a variety of other tints and modifications that
improve the beauty of the image's subject or to evoke a particular feel.
More recently, the company has also added additional image formats and
augmented reality filters that allow the user to overlay virtual objects
into real-world photos.
Once a user is happy with the image they have created, they can upload it to
their Instagram feed where it can be viewed and commented on by friends and the public
in general, depending on the privacy settings selected for each
image. Users can view these images via the Instagram app as well as via the
company's Web site. - Global Ranking: Despite being primarily a mobile
app-based service, Instagram still ranks very highly among Web sites, coming
in at number 27 globally and number 24 in the US.8
Like Pinterest, its user base skews toward females with an even balance
between education levels among its users. It is primarily accessed from
schools, with home usage being a distant second. - Site Analysis
- Strengths: Love it or hate it, Instagram is
arguably responsible for the existence of the word "selfie." Although
some see this as just another example of an increasingly narcissistic
online culture, the world's youth seem keen on devouring the concept.
The service has become the place to share selfies but also
serves as a popular spot to post images of meals, travel destinations,
concert experiences, and any other life event that the user wants their
friends or the public to know about. This direct pipeline to the people
has led it to become popular with many celebrity and high-profile users,
even up to and including the existence of an official White House
Instagram account. Instagram's true strength lies in the simplicity of
its photo-sharing experience. Much in the way impatient readers will
often leaf through a book to just get to the picture, Instagram offers a
way for users to skip all of the talking and conversations that occur on
Twitter and Facebook and get directly to seeing what other people are
up to. - Weaknesses: Although Instagram
does maintain a highly-trafficked Web page, it is still largely known as
a mobile app. This significantly reduces the opportunities it has to
derive revenue from third-party ad placement. Without the existence of
banner and header ad slots, Instagram must instead rely on in-app
purchases and promoted accounts for its own revenue stream. That said,
Instagram is a wholly owned subsidiary of Facebook, meaning that the
service can exist as nothing more than a feeder product for Facebook
itself, and would still be considered entirely successful simply by
leading potential customers to the massive selection of Facebook ads. - Future Outlook: With Facebook backing Instagram, it's hard to imagine any real chance of failure.
Unlike independent entries on this list, Instagram only needs to
continue creating value for its parent company to validate its own
existence. Frankly, this much lower bar should be no trouble for
Instagram to hurdle for several years to come. The only foreseeable
issue that could arise is if another service were to unseat Instagram by
doing what it does but better. Some contenders have arisen in recent years,
such as Snapchat and photo-enabled messaging services like WhatsApp.
However, despite offering many of the same features and some additional
tweaks on the photo sharing genre, none of found the particularly
successful niche that Instagram has come to inhabit
- Strengths: Love it or hate it, Instagram is
Figure 3. Flickr’s Logo
- Founding: Flickr is the oldest of the entrants on this
list, having been founded in 2004 by Ludicorp. However, for most of its
life, the photo sharing site was a Yahoo property, having been acquired
by the well-known Internet company in 2005 for a mere $22 million to $25
million.9 Despite Yahoo’s own tumultuous fate, which ultimately
resulted in its acquisition by Verizon Communications, Flickr remained one
of its strongest, most consistent properties. Because of this, Verizon left
the photo sharing social network largely untouched, allowing its operations
to continue uninterrupted for several years. However, the financial weight
of Flickr’s business model eventually took its toll, and, in 2018, Verizon chose to
sell Flickr to SmugMug, its current owner. - Description: Like Instagram, Flickr is a photo sharing
service. However, that is about all the two can be said to share. Flickr's
community is made up of primarily photographers, whether they are
professionals, amateurs, or just dabblers, the focus is much more intensely
placed on the quality of the images being posted, rather than any relation
they have to the personal lives of the users posting them. This is not to
say that the service cannot be used as a form of photographic journal, it is
simply not the most popular use for its services. Instead, Flickr is home to
the portfolios of thousands of artists, photographers, models, and media
companies. The site maintains one of the single largest repositories of
images on the Web, with over six billion images currently on its
servers and an estimated 3.5 million more being uploaded on a daily basis at
the site’s peak.10,11
Users can view the majority of these images without the need to sign up for
an account, but are required to create a profile to upload their own photos.
When Flickr was owned by Verizon, even free users could upload up to 1TB of
images. However, since its recent acquisition, users must now pay for
a "Pro" account in order to maintain a photo library of any more than 1,000
images. Although this may seem like an anti-consumer move on the surface,
most casual users are unlikely to hit the 1,000 image hard cap, while most
users exceeding that cap are likely to be professional photographers and
artists anyway. This means that Flickr’s revenue stream has the potential to
improve significantly if SmugMug can successfully monetize its larger
storage tiers. - Global Ranking: Flickr is a much stronger site in the
US market than it is abroad, ranking all the way down at number 561
globally, but as high as number 406 in the US. Any claims that the site is
no longer relevant should consider the fact that, just in the first quarter
of 2021, Flickr's rank jumped almost 300 spots, globally. The site has among the most
evenly distributed user bases here, with a slight tendency towards female
users but nothing like the bias seen in nearly all of the other entrants.
Its users are predominantly made up of those with some college experience or
a graduate degree, with the primary access site being from school-based
locations.12 - Site Analysis
- Strengths: Flickr's main strength these days lies in the sheer
size of photographic collection. Although users must, of course, give
permission for their images to be made available commercially, the site
has enough content on hand that, if only a small fraction of its total
collection is monetized, it still has access to a massive source of
revenue. Flickr does face competition in this area, even in its
strongest market, the US. Sites like CafePress, Deviantart, and others
also allow creators to post their works with on-demand options for reproductions as prints, collectibles, and gifts. However, none of these
competitors can match the sheer volume available to Flickr users. It is
also important to note that images on Flickr can be used commercially,
something it is relatively unique in offering. This means that
advertisers and other commercial entities can connect with uploaders to
license their photographs for use in ephemera and for other commercial
purposes. - Weaknesses: Flickr's weaknesses
historically stem from a single area of its operations: Its policies. The social
network's policies have come under fire several times. The most common
target for disgruntled Flickr users is its tendency to offer sales
percentages to photographers that many feel are less than fair, with
commercially licensed images often only netting their creators 51% of
their sale prices. Even worse, however, is the fact that Flickr can sell
images that users have chosen to upload as Creative Commons property,
with none of the profit going to the photographer. Although it is
entirely up to the user whether the photos are tagged as Creative
Commons images, many believe the lack of another alternative, aside from
the aforementioned commercial license, leads many users to choose that
option by default. More recently, the site’s switch to a monetized
business model for all accounts with more than 1,000 images has caused
controversy among some users. Whether those users will actually see any
real-world impact from the change is questionable. However, despite
profitability being a business’ main goal, users are often turned off
when a service makes any changes baldly aimed at increasing its own
revenue. - Future Outlook: Flickr’s future relies entirely
upon how well its most recent owners can monetize its massive photo library. SmugMug’s decision to begin charging a subscription fee for all accounts
over 1,000 images was, as has been said, controversial. However, the new
ownership acquired the company in order to turn a profit. In order to do
that, it had to reduce the maintenance costs associated with storing and
transmitting the massive library of photos it maintains. If SmugMug can
continue to position Flickr as one of the premiere places on the Web for
photographers and artists to display their work, then pros will likely
be willing to pay for its services. However, if Flickr’s formerly free
offerings are replicated by a competing service, then its user base may
well be bled dry by a less costly competitor. The trick will be for the
company’s new owners to find the right balance between monetizing its
assets and driving away free users.
- Strengths: Flickr's main strength these days lies in the sheer
Figure 4. Tumblr’s Logo
- Founding: Tumblr was created by David Karp and Marco
Arment to fill a perceived gap in the Internet for a service dedicated to "tumblelog,"
or short-form blogs. The site and its accompanying service officially
launched in February 2007. Tumblr had a relatively slow start, registering
just 75,000 users three years after its foundation.13
However, the social networking service reached a turning point in June 2012
when it partnered with well-known athletic brand Adidas on its first
official corporate blog. This, combined with a near simultaneous launch of
paid advertising slots on Tumblr blogs, finally gave the service the boost it
needed to begin its rise to where it is today.14
Seeing the trajectory Tumblr found itself on, Yahoo began talks with
the company shortly thereafter, eventually agreeing to acquire it for $1.1 billion in
May 2013. Since then, Tumblr was sold to Automattic, a company best known
for its ownership of the WordPress blogging platform. - Description: The primary differentiator that makes
Tumblr unique among social networking services is that, rather than each
user receiving a profile, they are instead equipped with an entire blog.
Although some users choose to use this blog as a personal timeline, very
similar to the function of a Facebook profile, most, instead, use their
Tumblr blogs as a fully-independent Web site in their complete control.
Users can post nearly any type of content they wish (with certain
restrictions covered in more detail later), including text, images,
videos, and audio clips. These can then be commented on or "reblogged" by
other Tumblr, users, which will result in that piece of content appearing on
the personal blog of the user that reblogged it. Tumblr is somewhat unique
in the fact that a single piece of uploaded content can typically be tracked
back to its originator thanks to the fact that all subsequent reblogs
include a set of "Notes," which collect all comments made on that post, as
well as links to all other blogs that have reposted the content. This easy
proliferation of media makes it possible for blog owners to quickly grow and
curate an impressively expansive collection of content on their area of
interest, with only a fraction of the effort it would take to have
accomplished something similar with a traditional Web site. - Global Ranking: Despite the fact that most Tumblr users
will go directly to the Tumblr blog of their choice, bypassing the Tumblr
homepage, the company's own Web site still ranks very highly, placing at
120th in the world and 115th in the US. Like most of the social networks on
the list, Tumblr skews more heavily towards female users. Its main users are
those with "some college" or "no college" experience, likely due to the
tendency for its blogs to attract younger users than most of the other
services on this list. This is supported by the fact that its average
visitor is vastly more likely to be accessing its pages from school than
from work or home. 15 - Site Analysis
- Strengths: Tumblr's strengths have
traditionally rested in its liberality
of topic material. The more than 500 million estimated blogs it houses range
across literally any topic one could think of. This means that, at least
theoretically, any advertiser in the world should be able to find a Tumblr blog on which their products may be appreciated. Thankfully,
Tumblr itself realized this years ago, launching paid ads in 2012. Since
then, that has remained the site's primary source of revenue, with
promoted posts joining simple banner and in-line ads later in 2013.
According to Tumblr's Head of Sales at the time, the site could expect
as much as six figures from a single ad placement in 2013.16
In addition to having its ads as a sizable revenue stream, Tumblr
has also managed to be almost unique among social networks in that it
has convinced its user base to pay for certain customization features
for their individual online presences. These paid-for options come in
the form of "themes," which can significantly alter the look and layout
of a user's blog. Prices for these vary, with some themes available free of charge. - Weaknesses: Tumblr has been home
to more than its fair share of controversy, typically regarding the
content its users post. Although all social networks must police posted
content to a certain degree, the distributed nature of the Tumblr
network of blogs makes this a somewhat more arduous task. For this
reason, Tumblr developed a list of prohibited
content that it will not allow as a topic on any one of its blogs. This
list includes anything that would be illegal under standard US law, as
well as any content advocating self-harm, or promoting eating disorders.
17 Eventually, the company also decided to disallow
essentially all
adult-only content. While it may have been something of a "well-known
secret" that a major portion of Tumblr’s user base utilized the platform
for X-rated content, the company nonetheless terminated access to
such blogs in late 2018. 18 Since the removal of pornographic
materials, Tumblr’s rank has fallen dramatically, dropping over 50 spots in the world, and
over 85 in the
US.19 - Future Outlook: Tumblr's unusual
take on the social network has led it to be somewhat more of a dark
horse than its competitors. It has never become a universally recognized
verb in the way Facebook or Instagram are, but, for all that relative
obscurity, it remains just outside the 100 sites ranked sites on the Web, and
maintains one of the largest user bases and highest number of monthly
visitors. That said, the company’s future now lies in the ability to
draw revenue solely from users not interested in adult content. What matters most
for any successful social network is not sheer user numbers, but rather
the revenue that can be derived from those users. Given Tumblr’s
decision to axe its pornographic blogs, it seems likely that its own
analyses of its revenue stream showed little of it being derived from
18+ blogs. If this is indeed the case, then, despite the backlash from
some of the populace, the effect on Tumblr’s bottom line may be
negligible. In fact, the "sanitization" of Tumblr’s content may actually
attract new advertisers and commercial entities to the platform that may
have avoided it in the past due to a perception of being less than
family friendly. That said, the continued downward trend of the site’s
global and, to a greater degree, US rankings is worrisome. It seems
clear that the social network’s new owners must do something to turn the
trend around, but it remains less clear if Verizon Media is willing to
expend the resources such an undertaking may require.
- Strengths: Tumblr's strengths have
Figure 5. LinkedIn’s Logo
- Founding: LinkedIn was founded on December 28, 2002,
but did not launch until May 5, 2003. From its inception, the social
network was designed to be a sort of work-centric counterpart to the likes
of Facebook and general purpose social networks. Where those private
offerings could be used to catalogue and communicate on the users’ personal
lives, LinkedIn was primarily interested in doing the same for users’
professional lives. This novel approach showed the company as one of the
first entities on the Web to see the possibilities for networking and
communication that social media could provide. Connections previously made
only at trade shows and via in-person introductions could now happen online
with a wider array of people than any single employee could physically meet
in a lifetime. These assets, as well as the site’s usefulness for job
seekers and recruiters, led to strong, sustained growth over the years since
its launch. The most recent figures peg its monthly user base at 260 million.
Because of these extremely attractive assets, it was only a matter of time
until one of the largest players in the tech world took interest in
incorporating LinkedIn into its own offerings. Unsurprisingly, another
company synonymous with getting work done, Microsoft, ended up being that
suitor. In June 2016 the duo announced an agreement under which Microsoft
would acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion.20 The transaction closed in December
of that year and LinkedIn is now a Microsoft company - Description: As stated above, LinkedIn is, to this day,
designed to serve as a professional counterpart to the likes of Facebook and
Twitter. This means that, rather than posting vacation photos and pictures
of meals, users post their work experience, professional accomplishments and
awards, and employment histories. The result is a kind of living,
ever-evolving resume for each user that provides job recruiters with a much
more complete picture of potential candidates than any sheets of paper ever
could. In addition to its role as a tool for job seekers and recruiters,
LinkedIn also serves as one of the greatest tools in the world for making
professional connections. This includes connecting with workers in a
person’s own company via one of the site’s many communication tools, as well
as connecting with other LinkedIn users around the globe. Like all social
networks, LinkedIn is at its best when its connecting people that would
otherwise have had little or not chance to ever meet or collaborate. - Global Ranking: LinkedIn is one of the most successful
single-purpose social networks in the history of the Web, and it shows in
the company’s current rankings. Not only is it ranked 25th overall in its
home country of the US, but the site’s strong focus on globalization has
resulted in it being ranked 53rd around the world. Its continued expansion to
new languages and regions has resulted in a strong presence abroad, and has
solidified LinkedIn’s future leadership position. 21 - Site Analysis
- Strengths: LinkedIn’s greatest strength comes from
its very real lack of competition. While there are many other
professional communications tools, such as Slack or its own parent
company’s Microsoft Teams, none of them offer the complete "Facebook for work" style of
social network that LinkedIn does. This dominance in its space is the
reason why the company was made even stronger through its recent
acquisition by Microsoft. Not only does it now have leadership of a
particular social networking market that it essentially created, but it
also has the financial backing of one of the largest tech companies in
the world. - Weaknesses: LinkedIn has suffered
possibly more than its fair share of high-profile security breaches.
While incidents of this type are worrisome enough for personal users on
Facebook, they could prove absolutely disastrous for LinkedIn users. The
CEOs of some of the most powerful companies in the world have used the
site to communicate business dealings with each other. Imagine any
fraction of such messages falling into the hands of the public or a
malicious third party. The ramifications could literally result in the
loss of billions of dollars or thousands of jobs. Thankfully, none of
LinkedIn’s security breaches have ever reached this scale. But, the
potential for such a blunder will always remain for a social network
that deals in such sensitive info and communication. Because of this,
LinkedIn must always be held to the highest of standards for user
security, as even one misstep could prove fatal. - Future Outlook: Now that it is a
part of Microsoft, LinkedIn’s future is looking brighter than ever. Its
offerings and connections can now be integrated into the likes of
Windows, Microsoft Office, and other nearly ubiquitous Microsoft
offerings that can be found in almost every office on Earth. This direct
line of access to business users can only serve to strengthen what was
already a dominant position for the professional social network, with
little or no competition anywhere to be seen.
- Strengths: LinkedIn’s greatest strength comes from
Summary
[return to top of this report]
Determining which of the social networks on this list will come to increased
its clout is, frankly, impossible. The social networking market is one
of the most tumultuous and hardest to predict of any in the tech sector, made
even more so by the shift away from traditional Web-based social networks
towards app-based platforms.
Something as simple as a single celebrity endorsement, or, for that matter, a
single celebrity meltdown, can make or break a service. Even that type of
differentiator is only a single factor in an ocean of influences determining
whether a network will stay in it for the long haul, or if it will fizzle and
fall into obscurity like former giants such as MySpace and Friendster. The above
list, at its heart, is simply a primer for readers wishing to know where to keep
their eyes peeled and where to best spend their time planning for the future.
None of sites and services above may even exist in five years, or one of them
may usurp Facebook, particularly given the king of social networks’ recent
blunders. The latter scenario seems far-fetched now but,
at one time, so did the rise of a former college student-only Web site.
Web Links
[return to top of this report]
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
- Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/
- Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/
References
[return to top of this report]
1. "Top
500 Sites on the Web."
Alexa
. Retrieved April 17, 2021.
2. Lunden, Ingrid. "Pinterest Sets IPO Range at $15-17…."
TechCrunch. April 8, 2019.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Cooper, Paige. "23 Pinterest Statistics That Matter to Marketers in
2019." Hootsuite. February 27, 2019.
6. Instagram FAQ.
7. Clarke, Todd. "22+ Instagram Stats That Marketers Can’t Ignore This Year."
Hootsuite. March 5, 2019.
8. Ibid.
9. Honan, Matt. "The Most Fascinating Profile You’ll Ever Read
about a Guy and His Boring Startup." Wired.
August 7, 2014.
10. Jeffries, Adrianne. "The Man Behind Flickr on Making the
Service 'Awesome Again.'" The Verge. March
20, 2013.
11. Parfeni, Lucian. "Flickr Boasts 6 Billion Photo Uploads."
Softpedia. August 5, 2012.
12. Ibid.
13. Ingram, Mathew. "Google VC, Tumblr CEO Among the Top
Innovators Under 35." GigaOM. August 25,
2010.
14. Delo, Cotton. "Tumblr Unveils First Major Brand Campaign
for Adidas." Advertising Age. June 8, 2012.
15. Ibid.
16. Frier, Sarah. "Tumblr to Introduce Mobile Advertising to
Help Achieve Profit." Bloomberg. March 5,
2013.
17. "A New Policy against Self-Harm Blogs."
Tumblr
. February 23, 2013.
18. Liao, Shannon. "Tumblr Will Ban All Adult Content on December 17th."
The Verge. December 3, 2018.
19. Ibid.
20. Greene, Jay. "Microsoft to Acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion." Wall
Street Journal. June 14, 2016.
21. Ibid.
About the Author
[return to top of this report]
Michael Gariffo is an editor for Faulkner Information Services. He
tracks and writes about enterprise software and the IT services sector, as well
as telecommunications and data networking.
[return to top of this report]