Formspring

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.

Platform Mechanics

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 added a smile button in January 2011, which users could utilize similarly to the like button on Facebook.