<== Site of the Week for 2019-05-23 ==>

PhotoBucket

PhotoBucket is a photo sharing service that was founded in Denver in 2003 by Alex Welch and Darren Crystal. The company received funding from Trinity Ventures.

MySpace acquired the firm in 2007 in a $300 million deal ($250 million plus a $50 million earnout). MySpace itself had just been acquired by Fox Interactive Media. Fox owned Fox News which produces Conservative News. A general boycott led to a collapse of MySpace.

In 2009, a Seattle based firm called Ontelo, with the backing of Steamboat Ventures (a private equity firm by Disney) acquired the business for $60 million. This was an 83% drop in price.

Disney is a politically correct firm and PhotoBucket gradually restored its reputation.

In 2009, PhotoBucket acquired Milyoni out of Pleasanton, Ca which provides video sharing services (reference).

In 2011, Photobucket became the default photo sharing service for Twitter.

In 2015 PhotoBucket raised $3.6 million in a round of financing to buy a mobile photo sharing app.

Photo hosting sites have the challenge that users will use the images on high volume sites which can get expensive. In 2017, Photobucket changed placed restrictions on image usage which created numerous broken links.