Tickle.com
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| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1999 - 2008 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, U.S.  |
| Owner | Monster.com |
| Website | tickle.com |
| Available in | multilingual |
| Current status | shut down |
Tickle Inc. is a media company, providing self-discovery, and social networking services. Formerly known as Emode.com, Tickle was founded on the idea that personal insight and connections to others can be scientific, fun and profitable. The site also allows users to create their own test, that are available for other users to take.
Tickle survived the dot-com bubble burst of 2000, became profitable in early 2002, was acquired by Monster Worldwide in May 2004 and is now part of the overall Monster network. In April 2008, it was announced that Tickle.com will be shut down at the end of June 2008 [1]. The site announced in December 2008 that they will be permanently shutting down on December 31, 2008. The site, as announced, was shut down on December 31, 2008.
In January 2009, Monster launched a new quiz website entitled TestQ, which focuses on career-related content and 'PhD quizzes'.
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[edit] History
Tickle was founded in 1999 as Emode.com by James Currier (who has since left the company), focusing on quizzes and tests for both entertainment and self-discovery. It was an early example of viral marketing, with tests such as the "What Breed of Dog Are You?" receiving heavy traffic from word-of-mouth and pass-along emails. It had a reputation for using an aggressive and arguably deceptive pop-up campaign. Accordingly, critics charged that Tickle's reputation and practices tarnish the commercial goodwill associated with its clients/advertisers, who appear ordinarily protective of their brands.
[edit] Products and services
Today, the company employs more than 50 people and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company is trying to rebrand itself as a service that provides tests created by PhDs collaborating with "experts" in their respective fields. Such PhDs and "experts" include Jennifer Bruning Brown and psychologists from Harvard, Yale, Duke, Northeastern, Washington University in St. Louis, University at Albany, SUNY and The University of Kansas.
Tickle's tests were divided into nine main channels. The channels were Entertainment, Style, Careers, Relationship, Mind & Body, Teens, Lifestyle, Family and PhD-Certified. Tickle offered over 200 tests, 50 of which were PhD-certified.
Users could message each other and discuss similar scores they may have gotten. They could also upload pictures and write about their hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc. on their profile.
Users could make custom test that they were able to share with other users. This greatly widened the amount of tests on the site, with tests on just about anything.
[edit] References
- ^ Hendrickson, Mark (April 23, 2008). "No One's Laughing at Tickle". TechCrunch. http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/23/no-ones-laughing-at-tickle/.
- New York Times 03/08/2004
- Motley Fool 05/25/2004
