An Overview of Spring.me

Table Of Contents

Spring.me the new social network that was previously Formspring, a question-and-answer-based social network launched in 2009 by Ade Olonoh. The site lets users engage in Q&A discussions and group chats, share photos and opinion polls and send private messages.

Quick Facts

Summary

Ranked N/A
Active users 25 M
Type Anonymous Networks
Launched date Nov 2009
Employees 66
Headquarters San Francisco, California, U.S.
Parent company None

Founders

Maximilian Rellin

Networks

Brand value In 2020 N/A
Revenue in 2020 N/A
Net loss In 2020 N/A

Current Controversies

FormSpring has gained some controversy, especially among teenagers, as it is one of the doors for harassment and bullying, due to the anonymity of the entries.

On March 12, 2010, a humor portal released the news that the creators planned to reveal personal information about their users, which could spread on Twitter and other social networks.

On March 22, 2010, a seventeen-year-old girl from New York committed suicide, The reports exposed the large number of insulting comments that had appeared about her on the FormSpring profile in the days leading up to her decision. Soon after, a boycott of FormSpring began.

Jamey Rodemeyer made an account in December 2010 and on September 18, 2011 he committed suicide due to bullying and harassment produced on this social network.

The support section of the site invites users to tackle harassment, denying anonymous questions, blocking unwanted users, or, in the case of a threat or crime, asking users to contact the police.

Closure and rebranding

Closure and Rebranding

Formspring announced it would be closing over the months of March and April 2013. The reason for the closure was that it had "been challenging to sustain the resources needed to keep the lights on."

According to the announcement, asking questions on Formspring would be disabled on March 31, 2013, and the entire site would be shut down permanently on April 15, 2013, after which, all content on the site would be deleted.

On Mar 31, 2013 a short updated statement was released which stated "Great news! We have a last-minute deal in the works that will help keep Formspring up. More details to follow in the coming week."

On May 8, 2013 a statement on the main page was issued stating; "5/8/13 – Great news friends, Formspring has been saved and is now under new management. Get ready for some cool and exciting new features. Stay tuned for more updates and happy posting!!". In May 2013, Spring.me acquired the assets of Formspring. Spring.me was officially launched in beta in September 2013 and launched publicly in November 2013.

As of Aug 1, 2015, the website has become a portal of Twoo, a social discovery and rating platform.

Original Idea

Spring.me was a social networking service, it was known as Formspring.

Formspring was launched in Indianapolis in November 2009 by the founder of online form builder Formstack, Ade Olonoh.

He noticed that most of their users were using the service to create "ask me anything" forms and decided to launch a separate site to make this easier.

At launch, Formspring was referred to by its full URL, formspring.me, to distinguish it from Formstack, which was at that time also called Formspring.com.

Formspring.me gained 1 million registered users in its first 45 days, so the original Formspring website was renamed to avoid confusion between the two sites.

Brief History

2009

Nov Formspring was launched.

At launch, Formspring was referred to by its full URL, formspring.me, to distinguish it from Formstack, which was at that time also called Formspring.com.

2010

Jun Formspring launched a major redesign, overhauling every aspect of the website.

2011

Jan Received an additional $11.5M series A round of funding from Redpoint Ventures and Baseline Ventures.

Apr Formspring has appointed Rogelio (Ro) Choy as COO.

Jun Formspring announced that its 25 millionth user had signed up.

Formspring launched features for celebrities to better communicate with their fans, including verified accounts.

Nov Formspring launched a media partnership program, partnering for the first time with media outlets including MTV, Hearst, Funny or Die and The Huffington Post.

2012

Feb Formspring was named a top ten most innovative social media site by Fast Company.

2015

Aug The website had become a portal of Twoo; Humor Rainbow Inc does not disclose whether the original contents still exist.

Network Features

Users

User's page. (via techcrunch.com)

Users of the site could follow others privately. While logged in as a registered user, people could also ask questions of their followers from the homepage.

Spring.me also asked one question per day named "Formspring Question of the Day" which was flashed in users' inbox.

In Jan 2011, Spring.me added a smile button which acted similar to the Like button on Facebook.

In Sep 2011, Formspring released an iPhone Application and several months later, in January 2012, further added to its mobile presence with the launch of its Android Application.

In Jan 2012, Formspring launched two additional features to the service.

One new tool allowed users to sort responses to questions by the number of "Smiles" received to bring the most liked content to the top of response streams. The added functionality aimed to give users the power to curate the best content on the site. In addition to letting users see their top smiled responses, the new feature allowed Formspringers to view top responses from other users and also see the most smiled responses to a question that was asked to multiple people at once.

The second new functionality launched gave Formspringers the option to choose whether they wanted to publicly or privately follow the accounts of other users. As part of this feature, Formspring users were then able to see how many others on the site were following their account.

Sources

Source

Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring.me

DBpedia dbpedia.org/page/Spring.me