http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/27/magazines/fortune/fastforward_photobucket.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007032808

The above article explores the success story behind Photobucket, one of the largest photo-sharing websites currently available. Experts attribute Photobucket’s success to the flexibility it offers when it comes to linking a user’s stored photos. Users can store pictures and short videos on Photobucket and then link them to any other page on the web, including personal blogs and social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Social networking sites attain success by building communities. They require diffusion in networks to gain membership momentum until a cascade forms, at which point they will blossom. However new competition emerges, just as Facebook came after MySpace to challenge it. Photobucket takes an alternate route: its success is derived entirely from not trying to build a community.

The CEO of Photobucket explains that instead of trying to build a community, they are letting communities such as MySpace and Facebook to build around them. Thus, even if newer social networking communities are created, there is never a need for a user to stop using Photobucket. Again this is due to the flexibility that Photobucket offers. Users invest a lot of time to build their photo albums and would obviously be averse to doing it all over again on a new photo-sharing site. So if they can use Photobucket with all social networking sites, why bother switching? It’s an interesting approach that stands to mitigate the effect of fads and trends.