The Internet just can't get enough cat GIFs. Want proof? Just take a look at the explosive growth of Imgur (pronounced "imager"), a site best known for its animal memes. In four years, Imgur evolved from a simple photo host to a full-fledged community of thoughtful, friendly users. Those cute kittens are contagious.
Imgur founder and CEO Alan Schaaf
Alan Schaaf created Imgur for Reddit users in 2009. Images that went viral on Reddit often exceeded their host site's bandwidth and ceased to exist. Schaaf thought he could do better. Redditors loved the site, turning to Imgur as their de facto image host.
Today, the bulk of Imgur's traffic still comes from Reddit. But the site is gaining traction with millions of users who are discovering the site's memes and GIFs on their own, with the help of Imgur's new Android and iOS apps. The site recently celebrated a milestone, hitting 100 million unique monthly visitors, who upload more than 1 million images and view more than 2 billion images every single day. TechHive talked to Imgur CEO and founder Schaaf about the site's origins, the growth of its community, and, of course, those darn cats.
TechHive: One year ago, you were attracting 1 billion image views per day. How did you double that?
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