User:Pedrodavies/sandbox

The Fancy
The Fancy is a social photo sharing website and app created by Joseph Einhorn. The Fancy describes itself as “part store, blog, magazine and wish list" . Its objective is to connect its users through shared tastes and the “things” they find interesting. It has been described as a number of things, such as "a collection of beautiful stuff" and “a kind of fashion magazine for the blog age” The company is headquartered in New York City. Noted entrepreneurs and investors include: Menlo Park venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, investment bank Allen & Co., Bob Pittman, Maynard Webb, Esther Dyson, Jim Pallotta (owner of the Boston Celtics), Eric Eisner (son of Disney magnate Michael Eisner). Twitter creator Jack Dorsey and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes sit on the board of its parent company, Thingd.

Activity
To contribute, users employ a tool known as a “bookmarklet” in their Web browsers. When they see something they like on another site, a few clicks allow them to select the image, describe it, then add it to their personal feeds, where it’s automatically linked back to the page where it was found. When uploading, users describe the images within the subcategories of either Men, Women, Kids, Pets, Home, Gadgets, Art, Food, Media or Other. Users can also “follow” others whose tastes they like. “Users who generate a lot of interest are rewarded with honorary titles like “editor” or “art director” for their curatorial prowess”.

Some of the forms of measuring your virtual credibility in the Fancy community is through the promotions and personal rank, placed under the user’s name, placed within the user’s homepage. Your rank is a real-time popularity score of the things you've added to Fancy.

The Fancy also has mobile applications for iPad, iPhone, and Android platforms.

History
Originally was set up as “an invitation-only photo blog where more than 5,000 tastemakers and celebrities upload and tag images of their possessions, as well as the baubles they'd like to own”. It has since then opened to the public, with almost 10,000 users registered in January 2011.

In August 2011, The Fancy has secured a $10 million round of financing at a valuation north of $100 million. from lead investor Pinault Printemps Redoute, the $16 billion French multi-national that owns some of the world’s biggest fashion brands, including Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga.

Thingd
The Fancy is Thingd's first launched product for consumers. Thingd is The Fancy's parent company. It is a database of "things" and its name is short for “Thing daemon,”. A daemon is a computer program that runs in the background, named for the ancient Greek concept of a daemon: something that is not visible, yet is always present and working its will. Thingd aims to be the object layer in the web, the platform that identifies images and collects metadata around everything from Gucci sunglasses to comic book collectibles”.

Thingd plans to turn its data into revenue by raking in affiliate fees, the small sums retailers like Amazon.com pay websites when they refer visitors who end up making purchases. "Einhorn hopes to team up with media websites such as Vogue.com, which could use Thingd's technology to automatically identify products in photos and provide information about them". Thingd would share the affiliate fees if links lead to a purchase. The company could also help private buyers and sellers of secondhand goods find each other and take a cut of the transactions (a la eBay)”.

Traffic
The majority of the visitors of The Fancy come from the United States. Visitors from the US make up for 32.8% of TheFancy.com's visits. Visitors from the United Kingdom and China represent 7.7% and 5.8% of the total traffic. Traffic coming from all the rest of the countries amounts to 53.7%