Webshots was letting users upload and share photos back in 1999, long before Flickr became the photo sharing icon of the Web 2.0 era. Webshots’ corporate history serves as a Silicon Valley history lesson in itself. Riding the wave of the .COM boom, Webshots was aquired by Excite@Home for for $80 million. Once the bubble burst and Excite went bankrupt, Webshots’ founders reacquired the company for pennies. As Web 2.0 gained steam, it was sold again to CNET for $70 million. Finally, it was sold to American Greetings for just $45 million, as numerous competitors like Flickr, Photobucket, and Facebook began dominating the photo sharing market. Still, Webshots calls itself the world’s largest photo sharing network with more than 32 million members, who have downloaded 5 billion photos off the site.
Homepage: http://webshots.com
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