Martin Douglas Hendry

What is it?

Imgur is an image-sharing platform established in 2009 by Adam Schaaf, initially developed as a means of sharing images more efficiently on the online community Reddit. The service has a robust and simple design which allows users to upload, rate and comment on image files. Many of the features are available to users without the requirement to have an account.

The site has developed a strong community which focuses on users sharing humorous and compelling images, memes and animated GIFs. Imgur has grown exponentially as a result, and can be seen to host the majority of images uploaded to Reddit – as well as growing its own native community.

As a consequence of its socially-optimized design (availability and prominence of social functions to all), one of its main characteristics is the ability of images hosted on the network to go “viral”. Popular posts (“up-voted” and commented on) become more prominently accessible within the site, and typically become the focus of dynamic community engagement.

The website remains profitable through the presence of ads for free users – as well as a “Pro” account that disables ads, increases the size of images the user can upload, and also gives users access to a number of analytical tools. These tools allow users greater ability to track engagement with their images.

One tool that is being made available to users is the ability for users to, not only be able to track the places where their image has been accessed from (referrals) – but also to be notified when their image has been re-posted elsewhere.

“Keep track of where your image goes after you upload and share it. The standard account only gives you 5 out of 10 top referrers in random order, while Pro users are given the top 100 referrers. Pro accounts will also be given the ability to see how many views came from each referrer and when an image was first seen on a referrer as well.”

Why is it important?

Distribution Spaces and “Successful Sharing”

Whilst Imgur prominently involves the sharing of image macros, memes and GIFS (visual media typically not “captured” by the OP) – it is also often used to share images directly captured by users. Whilst the former type of images have become the focus of this style of online-sharing and community engagement, the tools which Imgur offer users may provide interesting benefits in primary-source image-sharing.

The critical idea to grasp here is the concept of different types of sharing networks, and specifically: public, private and semi-public sharing spaces – and how these influence user sharing behaviour.

Where we typically capture and share images across Facebook or other social networks, we have an sub-conscious understanding of who will see the image. We may often want to limit this to an approved circle of known friends and family (and maintain an “ideal online identity” to other parties), or on the other hand distribute it as widely as possible. This occurs through awareness of the reach of the network and the way that we share images upon it.

For example, on Facebook, we can be fairly sure that our image will only be seen by confirmed friends who we interact with a lot – as it likely appears on their aggregated “news feed”. This is not necessarily the case for Twitter, where an image may be easily “re-tweeted” (numerous times) and shared across many other peoples’ friend networks, and to individuals we have not met. This is of course possible on Facebook through “sharing”, though this feature is not as prominent in the design and user of the service as “retweeting” in Twitter. As a consequence of this difference – it is likely that sentiment toward sharing images on Facebook, and on Twitter is affected by this fundamental difference in their design.

When we share there is likely an ideal “distribution goal” – whether exclusive distribution among close friends, or mass distribution and “viral fame”/ “internet points” among the general public. This would be pre-conceived by the user – and may be attained or failed depending on the instance of sharing. Failed sharing might be either that the image does not reach the people we want to see it (despite our understanding that uploading upon a certain network would achieve this), or through the  distribution of an image across networks of people who we did not want to see it (e.g. images of drunken exploits being distributed outside of intimate networks and seen by prospective employers etc).

We might speculate. that less instances of “failed” sharing would result in increased use of an image sharing platform, and increasingly satisfied and active users.

How might this impact the social camera?

It may be becoming ever more important that users are able to track the extent to which their images are being seen and shared – and whether this fulfills or is contrary to their image-sharing goals. As such, the presence of a tool that allows users to a greater indication of the completion of this could be extremely beneficial in various forms of primary-source image sharing.

This would allow users both a means of genuinely being able to track engagement with their images (rather than assuming that they are being seen by networks they have preconceived). Furthermore this would allow users to adapt their practices to optimize the “success” of their sharing activity. Early examples of this can be seen using the Instagram API, with web-based services such as Iconosquare and Webstagram, but are not widespread across other image sharing networks at this time.

I will continue to explore the phenomenon of “distribution spaces”, image-sharing goals and ideal online identities in my research – as well as the extent to which integrating features that inform users of audience engagement might be perceived as beneficial by users.