Difference between revisions of "Formspring"
| Line 4: | Line 4: | ||
Formspring was launched in Indianapolis, Indiana in November of 2009 by Ade Olonoh, the founder of online form builder Formstack.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formstack]Olonoh noticed that a vast majority of Formstack users were using the web service to create "ask me anything" or AMA forms. He decided to launch a separate site designed for this specific purpose. At the time of launch Formspring was referred to by its full URL, Formspring.me, to differentiate it from Formstack (which was also named Formspring at that time) due to the fact that the original Formstack URL at the time was registered as Formspring.com.[https://gigaom.com/2010/03/18/formspring-me-raises-2-5m-for-booming-site/] Within the website's first 45 days of operation, Formspring.me gained 1 million registered users which prompted Ade Olonoh to change the URL and branding from Formspring.com to Formstack (with Formstack.com as the updated URL) in an effort to further growth and avoid confusion between the two sites. | Formspring was launched in Indianapolis, Indiana in November of 2009 by Ade Olonoh, the founder of online form builder Formstack.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formstack]Olonoh noticed that a vast majority of Formstack users were using the web service to create "ask me anything" or AMA forms. He decided to launch a separate site designed for this specific purpose. At the time of launch Formspring was referred to by its full URL, Formspring.me, to differentiate it from Formstack (which was also named Formspring at that time) due to the fact that the original Formstack URL at the time was registered as Formspring.com.[https://gigaom.com/2010/03/18/formspring-me-raises-2-5m-for-booming-site/] Within the website's first 45 days of operation, Formspring.me gained 1 million registered users which prompted Ade Olonoh to change the URL and branding from Formspring.com to Formstack (with Formstack.com as the updated URL) in an effort to further growth and avoid confusion between the two sites. | ||
| − | Following the expedient growth Formspring soon branched off into a separate company and moved to San Fransisco, California with a designated team and pool of resources. [https://www.ibj.com/articles/18911-formspring-com-changes-name-to-eliminate-confusion-with-social-site] The website's rapid rise in popularity prompted a number of other websites to implement similar features, such as [http://si410wiki.sites.uofmhosting.net/index.php/Ask.fm Ask.fm] and [http://si410wiki.sites.uofmhosting.net/index.php/Tumblr Tumblr].[https://techcrunch.com/2010/01/06/tumblr-formspring/] | + | Following the expedient growth Formspring soon branched off into a separate company and moved to San Fransisco, California with a designated team and pool of resources. [https://www.ibj.com/articles/18911-formspring-com-changes-name-to-eliminate-confusion-with-social-site] The website's rapid rise in popularity prompted a number of other websites to implement similar features to Formspring's core functionality, such as [http://si410wiki.sites.uofmhosting.net/index.php/Ask.fm Ask.fm] and [http://si410wiki.sites.uofmhosting.net/index.php/Tumblr Tumblr].[https://techcrunch.com/2010/01/06/tumblr-formspring/] Announced on June 3, 2010, Formspring began a major site redesign which altered and updated every aspect of the website.[https://www.webcitation.org/68VMzEx4p?url=http://blog.formspring.me/2010/06/did-formspring-get-a-facelift/] |
| + | |||
| + | On January 15, 2010, Formspring raised $255,000 in seed funding. Just over one month after receiving seed funding, on March 18, 2010, Formspring raised $2,500,000 from a large group of angel investors, including SV Angel, Lowercase Capital, Kevin Rose, and Dave Morin.[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/formspring/company_financials] | ||
===Closure and Rebranding=== | ===Closure and Rebranding=== | ||
Revision as of 19:41, 11 February 2022
Formspring was a question-and-answer-based social media platform established in 2009 by Ade Olonoh, the founder of online form builder Formstack. Formspring was rebranded as Spring.me in 2013, now defunct.
Contents
History
Formspring was launched in Indianapolis, Indiana in November of 2009 by Ade Olonoh, the founder of online form builder Formstack.[1]Olonoh noticed that a vast majority of Formstack users were using the web service to create "ask me anything" or AMA forms. He decided to launch a separate site designed for this specific purpose. At the time of launch Formspring was referred to by its full URL, Formspring.me, to differentiate it from Formstack (which was also named Formspring at that time) due to the fact that the original Formstack URL at the time was registered as Formspring.com.[2] Within the website's first 45 days of operation, Formspring.me gained 1 million registered users which prompted Ade Olonoh to change the URL and branding from Formspring.com to Formstack (with Formstack.com as the updated URL) in an effort to further growth and avoid confusion between the two sites.
Following the expedient growth Formspring soon branched off into a separate company and moved to San Fransisco, California with a designated team and pool of resources. [3] The website's rapid rise in popularity prompted a number of other websites to implement similar features to Formspring's core functionality, such as Ask.fm and Tumblr.[4] Announced on June 3, 2010, Formspring began a major site redesign which altered and updated every aspect of the website.[5]
On January 15, 2010, Formspring raised $255,000 in seed funding. Just over one month after receiving seed funding, on March 18, 2010, Formspring raised $2,500,000 from a large group of angel investors, including SV Angel, Lowercase Capital, Kevin Rose, and Dave Morin.[6]
Closure and Rebranding
Formspring launched in November 2009 as a unique way for people to have engaging conversations about anything. Eventually reaching over 30 million registered users and 4 billion posts, Formspring grew beyond my wildest dreams to become an important part of how people interact online.I’m grateful to each of you that helped make the site better by asking questions and posting responses. None of this would have been possible without you. Through the community you created, we’ve met new people, strengthened relationships, opened our minds to different points of view, and made each other smile.
Unfortunately, and with great sadness, I must announce that Formspring is shutting down. While we’ve had great success in reaching a broad audience, it’s been challenging to sustain the resources needed to keep the lights on.
Sunday, March 31st will be the last day you’ll be able to ask questions or post content on Formspring. You’ll be able to export your responses from now through Monday, April 15th, after which the site and apps will go offline, and any content will be permanently deleted.
You can export the responses you’ve posted by following these steps:
Log into your account and visit
http://www.formspring.me/account/exportClick the export button When your export is ready you’ll receive an email Visithttp://www.formspring.me/account/exportagain to download a zip file with your dataThanks again for all the smiles.
Sincerely,
Ade Olonoh, Founder and CEO.
Platform Mechanics and Features
Users of Formspring created a personal profile as a means to invite other users to ask any question about the profile holder. While logged in, users could privately follow other profiles. Registered users and accounts could additionally ask questions of their followers from the homepage. Similar to an email inbox, a list of pending or unanswered questions were displayed on the private dashboard of the profile holder. Formspring.me also asked one question per day, aptly named "Formspring Question of the Day" which was shown flashing in Formspring users' inbox automatically. Formspring added a "smile" button in January 2011, which users could utilize similarly to the like button on Facebook.
In January of 2012, Formspring launched additional features on the website and mobile application. One of the new features, "Smile Sort", provided the option to filter and sort the homepage feed to show the most popular responses to questions asked, as indicated by the number of likes or "smiles" received on the response. This added functionality sought to allow users more control over their homepage feeds and grant them the ability to curate the best content on the site and platform. In addition to granting users the ability to see their top "smiled" responses, this new feature also allowed Formspring users to view the top responses from other users, as well as the most "smiled" responses to a question that was asked to multiple users and accounts at one time.
The second feature included in this expansion was the added functionality that gave Formspring users the option to decide if they wanted to follow the accounts of other users either publicly or privately. As a part of this new feature, users of Formspring were able to then view the number of other accounts and users that followed their account and the accounts of others. The company stated that this feature was created with the intent to allow users of Formspring the ability to get to know their community better and ask more direct questions to their followers, with the added benefit of curtailing broad "spam" questions. [7]
Mobile Application
In addition to the browser-hosted website, in September 2011 Formspring launched an application for iPhone users on the Apple application store [8]. The iOS application included the ability to post pictures, as an answer or as part of a question. In addition to the ability to post or reply with photos, a unique feature of the application allowed users to ask and respond to questions of their iPhone contacts, even if those contacts were not registered users of Formspring. Several months after the iPhone application was added to the Apple application store, Formspring added to their mobile presence with an application for Android users in January of 2012 [9].
