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 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 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, Alexa ranked Webshots the second largest English languageprivately held Web media property. 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 became very popular with bloggers. Facebook photos took over at universities. Photobucket became the default service on MySpace and SmugMug carved out a paid service for family albums and professional photographers. On October 25, 2007, CNET announced that it had sold Webshots to American Greetings 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. On October 2, 2012, American Greetings sold Webshots to Threefold Photos, Inc. The image hosting service was shut down on December 1, 2012. Webshots was to relaunch as a private photo sharing service called Smile by Webshots; however, the service no longer appears to exist. In May 2013, Threefold Photos introduced Webshots Wallpaper & Screensaver, a nod to the original service, which is a desktop application for Windows and Mac OS X and comes with a sampler of free high-resolution professional photos. Subscribers have access to over 1,700 images, with new images published daily. Webshots also offers a free Daily Photo application for Android devices, iOS, as well as Windows.
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 software version and a premium service which principally offers subscribers two new professional photos a day and complete access to a gallery of professional photos. The mobile applications offer a free image daily and the ability to purchase additional themed packs of images. Some pages of the webshots.com website also serve advertisements.
