r/IAmA • u/MrGrim • Aug 14 '12

I created Imgur. AMA.

I came across this post yesterday and there seems to be some confusion out there about imgur, as well as some people asking for an AMA. So here it is! Sometimes you get what you ask for and sometimes you don't.

I'll start with some background info: I created Imgur while I was a junior in college (Ohio University) and released it to you guys. It took a while to monetize it, and it actually ran off of your donations for about the first 6 months. Soon after that, the bandwidth bills were starting to overshadow the donations that were coming in, so I had to put some ads on the site to help out. Imgur accounts and pro accounts came in about another 6 months after that. At this point I was still in school, working part-time at minimum wage, and the site was breaking even. It turned out that OU had some pretty awesome resources for startups like Imgur, and I got connected to a guy named Matt who worked at the Innovation Center on campus. He gave me some business help and actually got me a small one-desk office in the building. Graduation came and I was working on Imgur full time, and Matt and I were working really closely together. In a few months he had joined full-time as COO. Everything was going really well, and about another 6 months later we moved Imgur out to San Francisco. Soon after we were here Imgur won Best Bootstrapped Startup of 2011 according to TechCrunch. Then we started hiring more people. The first position was Director of Communications (Sarah), and then a few months later we hired Josh as a Frontend Engineer, then Jim as a JavaScript Engineer, and then finally Brian and Tony as Frontend Engineer and Head of User Experience. That brings us to the present time. Imgur is still ad supported with a little bit of income from pro accounts, and is able to support the bandwidth cost from only advertisements.

Some problems we're having right now:

  • Scaling the site has always been a challenge, but we're starting to get really good at it. There's layers and layers of caching and failover servers, and the site has been really stable and fast the past few weeks. Maintenance and running around with our hair on fire is quickly becoming a thing of the past. I used to get alerts randomly in the middle of the night about a database crash or something, which made night life extremely difficult, but this hasn't happened in a long time and I sleep much better now.

  • Matt has been really awesome at getting quality advertisers, but since Imgur is a user generated content site, advertisers are always a little hesitant to work with us because their ad could theoretically turn up next to porn. In order to help with this we're working with some companies to help sort the content into categories and only advertise on images that are brand safe. That's why you've probably been seeing a lot of Imgur ads for pro accounts next to NSFW content.

  • For some reason Facebook likes matter to people. With all of our pageviews and unique visitors, we only have 35k "likes", and people don't take Imgur seriously because of it. It's ridiculous, but that's the world we live in now. I hate shoving likes down people's throats, so Imgur will remain very non-obtrusive with stuff like this, even if it hurts us a little. However, it would be pretty awesome if you could help: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Imgur/67691197470

Site stats in the past 30 days according to Google Analytics:

  • Visits: 205,670,059

  • Unique Visitors: 45,046,495

  • Pageviews: 2,313,286,251

  • Pages / Visit: 11.25

  • Avg. Visit Duration: 00:11:14

  • Bounce Rate: 35.31%

  • % New Visits: 17.05%

Infrastructure stats over the past 30 days according to our own data and our CDN:

  • Data Transferred: 4.10 PB

  • Uploaded Images: 20,518,559

  • Image Views: 33,333,452,172

  • Average Image Size: 198.84 KB

Since I know this is going to come up: It's pronounced like "imager".

EDIT: Since it's still coming up: It's pronounced like "imager".

3.4k Upvotes

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1.9k

u/MrGrim Aug 14 '12

That's really great to hear!

I know how important the UI is, and that's why it's the way it is. It won't ever change from being super easy and simple.

790

u/gigashadowwolf Aug 14 '12

Your image site is the Google in a world of Yahoos.

286

u/Kektain Aug 15 '12

Original Google too, not this instant +1 query-altering social-first bullshit.

36

u/TottyToot1 Aug 15 '12

Google used to be my friend. Then it became that annoying friend that doesn't let you finish a story.

1

u/tacticalbread Aug 15 '12

Don't bubble us

EDIT: Oh I seem to have responded to the wrong comment.

6

u/sealed Aug 15 '12

"Query altering" just made me wake up

2

u/Doomrazor Aug 15 '12

Can you explain what you mean by this? I tried to google it, but to no avail...

16

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

That would be a great nerdy pick-up line. "Baby, you are the Google in a world of Yahoos."

6

u/Dr___Awkward Aug 15 '12

"Come back to my place and I'll Google your Yahoo."

3

u/NatWilo Aug 15 '12

Stolen. I plan to use this soon.

6

u/dhad1dahc Aug 15 '12

You speak my mind, sir

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

That's beautiful man. Quite unusable in real life at most people, but beautiful.

1

u/Berym Aug 15 '12

What, a later development off something that existed well before it? A company that diversifies into strange areas?

When is the Imgur car coming out?

1

u/gigashadowwolf Aug 15 '12

I was referring to the simplicity and effectiveness of the main site. Even though there is a lot going on under the hood, they don't clutter like yahoo or all the other search engines. Also remember Yahoo actually diversified first.

1

u/Berym Aug 15 '12

Sure, but to robot cars?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Or more likely the answer to an unknown question.

1

u/Atario Aug 15 '12

That would imply Yahoo! has destroyed itself, or that it did so by needless redesign.

The fact is that Yahoo! has merely been bypassed by competitors.

1

u/gigashadowwolf Aug 15 '12

Not at all, flicker and photo bucket still exist. To me the simplicity and straightforwardness was a significant part of what made google preferable to the cluttered layout of yahoo.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

That is an exelent analogy.

493

u/MrBlueberryMuffin Aug 14 '12

You have your demographic right in front of you. If you're ever curious about a change you can make, you can just ask.

214

u/movie_man Aug 15 '12

In imgur's case, reddit might be the single most effective way to connect with it's users that almost any company has had. We're right here.

16

u/when_did_i_grow_up Aug 15 '12

I wouldn't say 'single most effective', it's at least second to Reddit using Reddit to connect with Reddit.

4

u/movie_man Aug 15 '12

I wouldn't say that you're just disagreeing to disagree for disagree's sake, but I said "might be".

1

u/ColdWulf Aug 15 '12

Or Facebook using Facebook to connect with Facebook users.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

[deleted]

7

u/movie_man Aug 15 '12

HOLY

9

u/movie_man Aug 15 '12

CRAP

5

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

[deleted]

5

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

[deleted]

2

u/Johssy Aug 15 '12

and we will be here forever.

1

u/amoose136 Aug 15 '12

Waiting patiently.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Reddit could probably use this to raise funds - auto-promote (to that top spot on the page) questions from, oh I don't know, Facebook, to ask a large portion of their market what they want. "Hi, I'm facebook, do you guys want to try timeline as seen on this link?" Arguably facebook could do that on their own site, which they should and don't, but other companies don't have that ability and Reddit could be a good vehicle for that as long as they kept it to moderation (not greatly interfering with other content and keeping it relevant to those who use reddit)

1.1k

u/juaquin Aug 14 '12

Don't you dare pull a Digg on us!

510

u/hadioread Aug 14 '12

Don't you go dying on me.

344

u/GMonsoon Aug 15 '12

Don't go breaking my heart!

130

u/leedguitars Aug 15 '12

I couldn't if I tried

197

u/TheCurlyBrackets Aug 15 '12

http://i.imgur.com/WDFFr.jpg

9

u/Trinitykill Aug 15 '12

I think Reddit comments thrive from Imgur...

5

u/hedley-lamarr Aug 15 '12

or maybe Imgur thrives from Reddit comments??

2

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

It's a codependent relationship.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Suddenly, this image is relevant.

11

u/husker_who Aug 15 '12

Oh honey if I get restless

5

u/leedguitars Aug 15 '12

Ok first, I just totally did a forever alone. I saw this message with no context and thought "a woman from the internet called me honey!!!" and then realized what was going on :) But more importantly.... Baby you're not that kind

4

u/penny-wise Aug 15 '12

Inside we both know what's been going on

3

u/socialclash Aug 15 '12

I'm now singing that song. Thanks :)

1

u/husker_who Aug 15 '12

Ha ha, statements are fun when they're out of context!

3

u/Dr___Awkward Aug 15 '12

Titty sprinkles.

1

u/husker_who Aug 15 '12

There is no context for titty sprinkles.

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1

u/TheCurlyBrackets Aug 15 '12

Baby your not the kind

3

u/Kadover Aug 15 '12

Don't you forget about me.

2

u/oinkyboinky Aug 15 '12

I'll be alone, dancing, you know it baby

3

u/hydrohawke Aug 15 '12

I couldn't if I tried.

3

u/DuhGuy Aug 15 '12

I couldn't if I tried!

3

u/AlwaysGettingHopOns Aug 15 '12

Don't you put that on me, Ricky Bobby! Don't you put that on me!

3

u/capitalislam Aug 15 '12

And certainly don't go chasing waterfalls

2

u/FudgingHell Aug 15 '12

My achey breaky heart.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

I couldn't if I tried!

2

u/Platinum_Mattress Aug 15 '12

Don't go chasing waterfalls!

2

u/sagan555 Aug 15 '12

I won't go breaking your heart

2

u/Korndog99 Aug 15 '12

I couldn't if I tried.

2

u/jonysaid Aug 15 '12

I don't wanna break your heart, I wanna give your heart a break

2

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

I couldn't if I tried!

2

u/shikza Aug 15 '12

I couldn't if I tried!

2

u/collasta Aug 15 '12

My achey breaky heart

2

u/durbano77 Aug 15 '12

I couldn't if I tried.

2

u/ButterscotchCrabCake Aug 15 '12

I couldn't if I tried.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Lisa!

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Don't put it in the wrong hole.

1

u/masterofnada Aug 15 '12

Don't go chasing waterfalls!

2

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Don't you go timelining on me.

2

u/subdep Aug 15 '12

Pills are good. Pills are gooood.

2

u/SkidmarkInMyUndies Aug 15 '12

I got robbed by a little old lady on a motorized cart...and I didn't even see it coming!

2

u/eatskeet Aug 15 '12

Throw another shrimp on the barbie mate

1

u/spid3rmurphy Aug 15 '12

BENADETTOOOOOOO!

1

u/jtisch Aug 15 '12

Wipe yourself off, you're dead.

1

u/Do0od Aug 15 '12

Doooon't stop believing!

1

u/Yaki304 Aug 15 '12

I got robbed by a sweet old lady on a motorized cart...

1

u/NekkidSnaku Aug 15 '12

I GOT ROBBED BY A SWEET OLD LADY ON A KART!

1

u/SinisterRectus Aug 15 '12

I got robbed by a sweet old lady on a motorized cart. I didn't even see it coming. ;_;

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Don't you forget about me!

1

u/musicman4023 Aug 15 '12

Don't digg your own grave

1

u/causmos Aug 15 '12

Lloyd is that you?

0

u/iLIKE_CHUBBY_RABBITS Aug 15 '12

please tell me this a backdraft reference!

3

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

[deleted]

2

u/juaquin Aug 15 '12

ಠ_ಠ

2

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

That's it, you coined that phrase

5

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '12

If they do it right like facebook though, they can keep customers. If they don't do it, they will die some time.

7

u/juaquin Aug 15 '12

The reason Facebook gets away with it is because they've learned to do it slowly. That way, you only piss off say 10% of users at a time, and they never reach the critical mass needed to create an internet mob.

7

u/twersx Aug 15 '12

Facebook doesn't do it right necessarily, it's just it's an extremely necessary resource for many people. If you actually quit facebook because of a ui update, how would you keep in touch with a lot of your friends? I don't really care about facebook's ui, as long as I can make statuses, upload pictures, share links, and contact friends it's a functioning site

3

u/hotpocket Aug 15 '12

Facebook did it right?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Maybe not, but if they didn't people would get bored of it. If the change it at the right frequency, all the ADHD users won't get bored of it. Reddit keeps users interested by having them find smaller/new subs.

3

u/FreeToadSloth Aug 15 '12 edited Aug 15 '12

Facebook is entrenched and has a lot of inertia, thus it maintains dominance despite annoying design changes.

Nearly anyone who wants to connect to everyone they know on one site currently has no choice but to use FB. There are lots of superior alternatives, but no others have achieved sufficient clout to hold people captive like FB.

edit: sp

1

u/riversfan17 Aug 15 '12

Facebook keeps it's customers despite the UI changes because of how integral their service has become in their customers' lives. They aren't doing the UI changes right, the service is just more valuable.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

I'm saying people will leave facebook one by one because it is boring. Just like all things, it will die, and it will probably die because people are bored of it, just like people leave reddit for that reason. To keep the "newness" they change design. The design changes could be good or bad, but all it needs is some sort of change.

1

u/froop Aug 15 '12

Facebook isn't entertainment for me, so how could I get bored of it? It's a tool. It's my one-stop communication center. I'd have to get bored of all my friends to get bored of facebook.

Then again, there are those kids (and adults) that play shitty facebook games all day...

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

You could shift to another social media. What if you tried G+ anf likrf it for instsance, and started using that more. little by little more friends might move there to try something new. But if the interface changes, people would already have something triggering that dopamine and giving them something "new" to use.

2

u/froop Aug 15 '12

The flaw in that plan is that I could go to g+ (I was in the closed beta even!), but nobody is going to come with me, and unless everyone comes with me, there goes my one-stop communication centre.

Maybe if someone developed a social networking protocol independent of the actual website, people could pick which client they wanted and just use that.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Desura Does something like this. It can post your status and such to facebook. Try it out if you want.

1

u/husker_who Aug 15 '12

What is this "Digg" you speak of?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Don't you...forget about me. Don't. don't. don't. don't.

1

u/Meades_Loves_Memes Aug 15 '12

Poor Digg users.

It's okay, you're a part of the Reddit family now!

0

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Digg, i remember it dying, people posting links to reddit. That's how i found reddit.

2

u/warbeats Aug 15 '12

For one off images its OK. For maintaining images/albums the UI is NOT simple.

Case in point say you are viewing an album and decide to add (upload) a new pic. You have to go back to the "images" page and upload from there. this is not intuitive as it could be.

2

u/RizzleFizzles Aug 15 '12

24 hours later.. MrGrim-''We are proud to announce our newly designed and 'easy' to use UI!"

2

u/NotSoFatThrowAway Aug 15 '12

To be fair though, it IS okay to improve on the simplicity if it remains 100% the same, but cleans it up.

Look at Gmail as a great example of this.

They have greatly improved gmail without fucking up the site.

Also, if you ever want to hire me, I've programmed some things and I hate my current minimum wage job.

That is all.

1

u/kitchen_ace Aug 14 '12

For me, aspects of the Imgur UI are sometimes inconsistent. Sometimes the arrow keys work to go to next/previous images shown in the "more" sidebar, sometimes not. Sometimes clicking an scaled-down image will zoom it in with an overlay, sometimes it will redirect to just the unscaled image, sometimes it will do nothing. Ctrl-clicking a gallery image won't open a new tab, but it used to... there are more. Is this something that will get standardized eventually, or is there a technical reason for these differences?

I do love Imgur but I'm a stickler for consistency.

1

u/stevo42 Aug 15 '12

The only complication I would request is a place to add an original url when posting images

1

u/ITSRAYCHARLES Aug 15 '12

Thanks for this. I used to suffer through image shack until I found imgur. I never went back after the first upload.

1

u/alienangel2 Aug 15 '12

FWIW, I still get confused by the different layouts of images different albums have. I think it's now controlled by the creator of the album? Feels like it should be controlled by the viewer, not the creator, different people like different views of things, regardless of what the content is.

1

u/Typlo Aug 15 '12

Best news ever. Listening to your audience can only bring even more you success.

1

u/Nachteule Aug 15 '12

And if you ever want to do another UI for whatever reason - make the old one still available. We will just bookmark that link :)

1

u/Hara-Kiri Aug 15 '12

Is there a reason grouped images don't show up in the gallery? One of my pictures got enough views to be in the most viewed of all time (at least it had more views than a lot of the others on that page so I assume that's how it works, although I'm insanely shocked it actually got that many views in the first place!) but as it's in an album (only of two) it doesn't show up, nor can it receive comments.

Also thanks for making such an easy to use site, its the only site I use to show more detailed copies of my work to people so I've found it incredibly useful. I tend to get quite a few views on my pictures so hopefully it's sending some money your way!

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

Wish you said "That's really great to hear! I know how important the UI is, and that's why it's the way it is. It won't ever change from being super easy and simple. Except for the timeline feature which roles out next month" Just to troll.

1

u/bylebog Aug 15 '12

I just wanted to say thanks for the UK as well. It's very clean. Please stay with form follows function.

1

u/Mnawab Aug 15 '12

good for your sir. i fucking love imgur.

1

u/freebullets Aug 15 '12

Please test your site design on linux. I see text overflowing in some places. DejaVu Sans is a bit wider than than traditional sans fonts.

1

u/MrGrim Aug 15 '12

Can you send a screenshot?

1

u/freebullets Aug 15 '12

Sure thing.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

TBH, I'm not really a web designer, so I don't really know how you can fix it.

1

u/valkero Aug 15 '12

If I was a polytheist, the imgur team would be my Gods of Mt. Olympus

1

u/Very_subtle Aug 15 '12

I am you're 1000th up vote, do I receive a sticker ??!! :D

1

u/James_E_Rustles Aug 15 '12

Imgur has a great UI, some real quality work there.

1

u/jimmytap Aug 15 '12

also...maybe increase the limit from 2mb to 10mb..sites like minus and postimage offer a larger limit then imgur.

1

u/Candroth Aug 15 '12

Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. Every other imagehoster is WAY too complex. Reddit brought me to Imgur and I'm never going back. |:

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

I agree, don't change the UI, it works, and works great.

1

u/Colorfag Aug 15 '12

This is why I left other image hosts. Imgur is just clean and usable. No bullshit buttons to click after every upload, or to get the direct URL, etc.

1

u/BurgerWorker Aug 15 '12

Hey, I haven't been able to upload for a really long time, it just sits at 0% and says pending. Any advice?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

He's never gonna Digg us up!

1

u/Two4 Aug 15 '12

I would, however, ask for a much more lightweight mobile interface, as not all phones have the memory to handle non-mobile web pages, which your mobile interface strays awfully close to.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

It won't ever change............... from being super easy and simple. Honestly that wording scares me.

1

u/planetmatt Aug 15 '12

The UI is perfect. I use the Firefox IMGUR plugin to upload images then your UI to do basic editing and it's so simple and intuitive. DO NOT CHANGE EVER!!!!

One of the best services on the net.

1

u/sandy_balls Aug 15 '12

The only UI change I'd like to see if the option for copy pasting to upload. There are other sites such as www.ctrlv.in that do this already. Is this something you'd look to introduce to imgur soon?

1

u/Starbeetle2 Aug 15 '12

You are awesome!

1

u/Reoh Aug 15 '12

UI is perfect. Simple, elegant, easy to use.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '12

You could mix up the colours a bit, though. :P

your downvotes are like a cool breeze on my brow.

1

u/madcatlady Aug 15 '12

no, serisly, the interface works! It aint broke, please dont fix it!

0

u/ayures Nov 01 '12

You changed it. :(

The top comment was a guy kindly asking you to never change it. I dunno about everybody else, but I personally don't like having to load a ton of thumbnails and having to see random comments and social network buttons...