Imgur Analytics Platform Reveals Data Around the Lifecycle of Images Online

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 28, 2014) - Imgur, the fastest growing image sharing platform on the web, today introduced Imgur Analytics, an analytics platform that reveals the lifecycle or story of images as they travel and are shared online.

Imgur has always been optimized for social sharing with features like short links, social sharing buttons, "no limits" sharing, direct linking and embeddable images and albums. Now, with the Imgur Analytics Platform, the lifecycle of an image is brought into focus, allowing brands, advertisers, and Imgur Pro users to see where their images travel over time and better understand the virality of image content. With this analytics platform, Imgur becomes the optimal home for all active social media users and increasingly brands, to upload, share, and track images on the web.

"Imgur now hosts more than 650 million images and attracts up to 1.5 million uploads daily," said Alan Schaaf, founder and CEO, Imgur. "As one of the world's top entertainment destinations, we have a huge opportunity to build out the data and analytics piece of our business and to create advertising channels that drive new revenue streams for the company."

To understand image popularity, Imgur has always logged how many views an image receives over time. Imgur will now look deeper into how images are shared and where they travel online, to better understand what drives the popularity of image content that "goes viral." This data dovetails nicely with a new native advertising business model for the bootstrapped company, which has been profitable.

"Brands are tired of ineffective banner campaigns," said Schaaf. "Sites like Imgur present fresh alternatives to dated approaches, and our ability as a platform to help content go viral is a primary reason brands are attracted to us. Brands have already started to recognize the platform's potential as a vibrant, influential online community and as a distribution mechanism for viral content."

What's new? The new Analytics Platform now allows users to:

• Track total image views over time
• Graph image views over time by date range and even by the hour
• See top traffic referral sources (ex. Facebook, Reddit, Twitter)
• Get detailed traffic referral paths within each top referral source (to know the exact traffic source)

Imgur Analytics also ties in directly with Imgur's native advertising efforts and helps track image views during active campaigns, in addition to earned media views following paid campaigns. These tracking insights will help Imgur and its ad partners gauge the ultimate success of each campaign. Although the world is in early stages of analyzing the data and science of virality with image content online, Imgur believes they are in the unique position to leverage those learnings with the new analytics platform. As feedback from users and brands surfaces, Imgur will continue to improve personalization algorithms and determine how best to optimize features for this new platform.

tl;dr Imgur is implementing analytics, so you can track the story behind every image

To download Imgur iOS app https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imgur/id639881495?mt=8
and Imgur Android app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imgur.mobile

About Imgur
Known as The Simple Image Sharer, Imgur provides a fast and easy service for sharing images with the Internet. The company offers free image hosting, paid Pro subscriptions, and a robust API. The site features the Imgur Gallery, a real-time collection of the most popular images being circulated on the Internet.

Founder Alan Schaaf launched Imgur in February of 2009 when he was a junior at Ohio University. The site immediately gained favor with users of social media sites and online communities due to its ease of use, anonymous uploads and unlimited bandwidth restrictions.

Imgur is profitable and has not taken any funding. To try Imgur, visit imgur.com.