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AddThis

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AddThis
Company typeSocial bookmarking
IndustryOnline advertising
Mobile advertising
Web analytics
Founded2004
HeadquartersVienna, Virginia, USA
Key people
Richard Harris, CEO
Hooman Radfar, Executive Chairman & Co-founder
Dominique Vonarburg, Co-founder

AddThis is a media web-tracking technology company based in Vienna, Virginia, United States.[2] The company operates AddThis.com, a social bookmarking service that can be integrated into a website with the use of a web widget. Once the widget is added, visitors to the website can bookmark an item using a variety of services, such as Facebook, MySpace, Google Bookmarks, Pinterest, and Twitter.[3] The site reaches 2.1 billion unique visitors monthly and is used by more than 15 million web publishers.[4] The company changed its name from Clearspring in May 2012.[5] AddThis was purchased by Oracle Corporation on January 5, 2016.[6]

History

Clearspring Technologies was founded in 2004 by Carnegie Mellon University graduate students Hooman Radfar[7] and Austin Fath in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company began as an R&D and consulting concern focused on commercializing research concepts around the semantic web and social networks. Initial funding came primarily from grants and consulting projects, as well as from friends, family and a US$100,000 investment from Idea Foundry. Its first product was Semantic Start Page, a customizable, browser-based dashboard that displayed information and news. Users could add widgets from publishers across the web and share content across their social graph.

AddThis LLC was founded in 2006 by Dom Vonarburg. By 2007, AddThis had served more than 100 million widgets to websites, with website growth at 100 percent per month and some two million views a day.[8][9]

In 2008, Clearspring acquired AddThis LLC, with the intent of creating a single content sharing platform for publishers under one brand: AddThis. The combined platform per Comscore was 254 million unique users.[3][10] Clearspring upgraded AddThis with widget-sharing capabilities from LaunchPad, then discontinued the LaunchPad offering, reaching 600 million unique users by the end of 2009.[11]

In 2010, the company launched the Clearspring Audience Platform, a service for brand marketers to deliver interest-based display advertising across the web, which topped 1 billion unique users and was used by over 8 million unique domains.[12] Clearspring acquired data science company XGraph in 2011.[13] In September, the company hired a new CEO, Ramsey McGrory, formerly of RightMedia and Yahoo!, with co-founder Radfar becoming executive chairman.

On May 10, 2012, Clearspring changed its name to AddThis, its most widely used product. The company launched three sharing and analytics tools: Trending Content Box, Follow Tools, and Welcome Bar,[14][15] as well as supporting content sharing for Pinterest and Web Intents.[16][17][18] In August, the company began offering social login.[19] In September, CFO Richard Harris took over as CEO.[20]

In March of 2014, the company was named number one on the Top 30 Syndicated Ad Focus Entities by comScore. [21]

On January 5, 2016, AddThis was purchased by Oracle Corporation for $175 million. Before being acquired, AddThis had raised roughly $73 million to date.[22]

Investors

In 2006, the company raised a Series A investment led by Novak Biddle and ZG Ventures, and relocated to Virginia, where it developed LaunchPad, a widget sharing and tracking platform for publishers. The product attracted a US$18 million Series C investment led by New Enterprise Associates.[8]

In 2012, Clearspring raised US$20 million in D round of venture funding led by Institutional Venture Partners.

The company has raised over US$58 million in venture capital. Funding is from Institutional Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Novak Biddle Venture Partners, Rho Ventures, as well as from angel investors Steve Case, Ron Conway, and Ted Leonsis.[23]

Like button lawsuit

The company is the subject of a lawsuit by Rembrandt Social Media, which is also suing Facebook, for the use of patents belonging to deceased Dutch programmer Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer that involve the "Like" button.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Addthis.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-04-01.
  2. ^ "Company contact". AddThis. Retrieved 27 September 2012.
  3. ^ a b Keane, Meghan (2008-09-30). "Widget-maker Clearspring Buys AddThis". Wired. Archived from the original on 3 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-04. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "AddThis is the largest social infrastructure and data platform". Company About page. AddThis. Retrieved September 20, 2012.
  5. ^ "Clearspring.com". Clearspring Data. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  6. ^ "DCInno". DCInno. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
  7. ^ "Web 2.0 Expo Speaker Bio - Hooman Radfar". CMP Technology and O'Reilly Media, Inc. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
  8. ^ a b "Article: AddThis.com Reaches 100 Million Widgets Served - Social Bookmarking". PRNewsWire. 2007-03-05. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
  9. ^ Valentine, Mike Banks (2006-10-11). "Facilitating Social Media Optimization (SMO)". WebProNews. Archived from the original on 9 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-04. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ Darcy, Darlene (2008-09-30). "Clearspring acquires AddThis - Washington Business Journal:". Washington.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2010-02-15.
  11. ^ "Press Release: Web Widgets meet mobile video as Clearspring and Transpera Join Forces". Clearspring.com. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  12. ^ "Press Release: Clearspring, Largest Sharing Platform on the Web, Launches Audience Platform for Advertisers and Publishers". Clearspring.com. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  13. ^ "Clearspring CEO McGrory on the acquisition of Xgraph". AdExchanger. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  14. ^ "Clearspring Rebrands as AddThis, Reaches 1.3B Users". Siliconangle. Retrieved 2012-05-10.
  15. ^ "Extending the Platform with New Traffic and Engagement Tools". AddThis.com/blog. Retrieved 2012-05-10.
  16. ^ name="AddThis Blog"> AddThis Blog: Pinterest Available in the AddThis Services Menu and Some Fun Facts
  17. ^ [1]
  18. ^ AddThis blog: A Step for Open Sharing: AddThis Integrates Web Intents
  19. ^ "Digital content tracking platform AddThis adds social sign-in feature to its suite of plug-ins". The Next Web. August 21, 2012. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
  20. ^ Overly, Steven (September 29, 2013). "The Download: Data analytics firm AddThis moves its financial officer into the CEO role". The Washington Post. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  21. ^ "comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Desktop Web Properties".
  22. ^ "DCInno". DCInno. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
  23. ^ "About the team". Team. AddThis. Retrieved 27 September 2012.
  24. ^ "Facebook sued over 'like' button". BBC. February 11, 2013. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
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