History: Mobile App Development

9GAG, Inc. operates an online platform and social media website where users can upload and share user-generated or other social media content. Founded in 2008 and based in Mountain View, California, 9GAG has grown significantly in popularity with over 26 million Facebook likes and 5 million Twitter followers. The website allows users to share memes and other humorous images that are voted on and commented on, with content separated into categories like hot, trending, fresh, and others.

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History: Mobile App Development

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Nishant Chandra

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9GAG, Inc. operates an online platform and social media website.

Users upload and share content either usergenerated or found on other social media websites. 9GAG, Inc. is based in Mountain View, California. Since the
website was launched on April 23, 2008, it has grown in popularity, reaching more than 26
million Facebook likes[2] and over 5 million Twitter followers in September 2015.[3]
Contents
[hide]

1 History
1.1 Mobile app development

2 Content

3 Website culture

4 Reception and data

4.1 Authorship controversies

5 References

6 External links

History[edit]
The website was cofounded in 2008 by the University of Hong Kong student Chris Chan, with the intention of
creating an alternative online platform to email on which users could easily share humorous photos or videos.
The website began as a "side project" during a time period when Facebook wasn't available in Hong Kong. In a
2012 interview, Chan declined to explain where the name "9GAG" is derived from.[4]
Starting the company under a Just for Fun mentality, 9GAG's co-founders began using 9GAG as a rsumbuilder for the 500 Startups accelerator program. During the summer program, the 9GAG team worked on other
startup ideas, including StartupQuote and Songboard. [5] Following the 500 Startups accelerator program, 9GAG
participated in Y Combinator's incubator and its user-base increased to 70 million global unique visitors per
month.[6] The 9GAG co-founding team discontinued all other projects and shifted their focus on solely 9GAG. 500
Startups was given equity for their aid and mentorship.
In July 2012, 9GAG raised an additional US$2.8 million in funding from Silicon Valley-based venture capital
behemoths,[7] including True Ventures and Greycroft Partners. The company later released an iOS iPhone
application.
In August 2012, 9GAG received another US$2.8 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture capitalists,
including True Ventures and Greycroft Partners, as well as individual investors like Christopher Sacca, Kevin
Rose, and Naval Ravikant. This funding was able to support 9GAG's engineering team growth both in Hong Kong
and in Silicon Valley.[8]

Mobile app development[edit]

9GAG has a mobile application on iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, and for BlackBerry 10.[9][10]
In July 2012, 9GAG launched an app for iOS and Android. The mobile application serves as a streamlined
version of the web-based content.[11] In summer 2014 9GAG launched 9CHAT. 9GAG users are able to log into
their account and write to a stranger by sending them a message. 9CHAT improved by allowing the creation of

groups in different sections. It's possible to write with more people at the same time.[12] January 2015, 9GAG
launched its first game called 9GAG Redhead redemption.

Content[edit]

The website's content is generally referred to as "internet memes", and is upvoted, downvoted, and
commented on by users based on its popularity at a given time.[13]

Similar to other social media websites like Reddit and Digg, 9GAG utilizes user-generated memes that
are shared with the entire 9GAG community. While memes have different categories, they are typically
displayed as humorous images, or comic strips, with captions conveying certain messages.[14]

Content is separated into the following general categories of hot, trending, fresh, TV, girl, comic, NSFW,
cosplay, geeky, timely, meme, WTF, and a few others such as cute, food, Gifs. The website allows users to
up-vote or down-vote memes, followed by long comment threads where users comment on the image/video
content and on each other's comments.

Most of 9GAG's content is presented in the form of image memes, whereby animal-related image
memes (e.g., Advice Animals or Advice Dogs) tend to be the most popular.

Other popular image memes include the Confession Bear, Overly Attached Girlfriend, First World
Problems, Awkward Penguin, Scumbag Steve, Bad Luck Brian, Socially Awkward Penguins, and several
others.

These image memes are typically formatted whereby a given image has both top and bottom captions.
While the top caption describes a certain situation, the bottom caption usually complements the top caption
by presenting a humorous follow up message to the original situation.

Memes are commonly presented in a 4x4 comic strip.

The "Rage Comic" was the first meme to be presented in this fashion, depicting an irritable
circumstance where the last image frame displays the letters "FU" (i.e. the first two letters of the word
"fuck").[citation needed]

Rage comics were later spun off to include memes under "Everything Went Better Than Expected" and
"Forever Alone" categories, amongst others.[citation needed]