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<p><div class="image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image"><a title_source="AP/Business Insider" title_caption="A Formspring user." class="zoomin" href="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/51efd34169beddfa0e000000-960/anthony-weiner-carlos-danger.jpg"><span class="click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source">AP/Business Insider</p><p class="caption">A <keyword id="1139639" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Formspring">Formspring</keyword> user.</p></div></div>New York City Mayoral candidate <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-weiner-carlos-danger-sex-chats-report-2013-7">Anthony Weiner recently confirmed the authenticity of a new set of sexually charged online chats with</a> a 22-year-old woman.</p>
<p>The chats allegedly took place last year on Facebook and the lesser-known social networking site Formspring. </p>
<p>Wait a second, what is Formspring and why was Weiner using it for his sexting?</p>
<p>You could think of Formspring as an earlier version of Quora but geared toward teenagers, where people can ask and answer questions.</p>
<p>Once you submit a question, it goes to the user's inbox. Once they answer it, both the question and answer appear in the person's feed, which looks slightly similar to a Twitter profile.</p>
<p>You can anonymously ask questions, but you do need a username in order to respond. Weiner reportedly chose "Carlos Danger."</p>
<p><span>Due to the anonymous nature of the site, a lot of the questions end up being mostly sexual, </span><a href="http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/29/formspring-the-site-for-prying-questions-gears-up-but-will-it-grow-up/">a UCLA student told Forbes back in 2010</a><span>. So it's no wonder why Weiner may have seen it as a prime location.</span></p>
<p>For a short while, Formspring was an actively growing social network. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/formspring-started-as-a-side-project-but-now-has-nearly-28-million-users-and-14-million-in-funding-2012-1">It first launched back in 2009 and signed up 1 million users in its first 45 days</a>. At one point, Formspring reached 20 million registered users.</p>
<p>But in 2010, Tumblr trounced Formspring when it launched a feature nearly identical to Formspring's bread and butter called "Ask Me." As other sites also copied Formspring, it pivoted to a more interest-based model in 2012. But the new idea ultimately fizzled. In March of this year, <a href="http://blog.capwatkins.com/formspring-a-postmortem">Formspring shut down and put a fair amount of blame on its anonymous content</a>. </p>
<p><span>Formspring's anonymous nature gave way to cyberbullying. In 2010, </span><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/long-island-teen-suicide-linked-cruel-cyberbullies-formspring-site-police-article-1.173441">a 17-year-old girl committed suicide after being bullied on Formspring</a><span>.</span></p>
<p>So Formspring as many people may remember it is no longer around, but it has <a href="http://www.formspring.me/">since been revived</a> under new management, <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/07/23/anthony_weiner_formspring_what_is_formspring_and_who_uses_it.html">according to Slate</a>.</p>

Here's The Little-Known Site Anthony Weiner Used To Send Sexts

<p><keyword id="1139639" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Formspring">Formspring</keyword>, a once-buzzy site that counted more than 28 million users for its ask-me-a-question service, was the Snapchat of its day—an Internet service popular with teens and misunderstood by adults, and well-funded by eager venture capitalists.</p>
<p>Now, four years and $14 million later, CEO <keyword id="300613" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ade-Olonoh">Ade Olonoh</keyword> announced that the company is <a href="http://formspring.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/formspring-is-shutting-down/">shuttering its doors at the end of March</a>, writing that Formspring wasn't able to "sustain the resources" to keep going.</p>
<p>Formspring had an incredibly rapid rise, hitting a million users in its first 45 days and growing to 32 employees. It faced a wave of controversy as teens exploited the anonymity of its question-asking service to bully others.</p>
<p>But it never established a clear method of making money, and <a href="http://www.zurb.com/soapbox/events/32/Ade-Olonoh--ZURBsoapbox">traffic hit a plateau last summer</a>.</p>
<p>It's the rare obvious, public failure of a once-buzzy consumer-Web startup. Most die far more quietly—and many will meet Formspring's fate as they fail to raise more venture-capital financing.</p>
<p>Here's a video of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/formspring-started-as-a-side-project-but-now-has-nearly-28-million-users-and-14-million-in-funding-2012-1">Olonoh talking about Formspring in early 2012</a>:</p>

Startup Cash Crunch: $14 Million Later, Ask-A-Question Site Formspring Is Closing

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6354616" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Twitter">Twitter</keyword> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/today-twitters-real-birthday-no/330304/">was publicly launched</a> on July 15, 2006.</li><li>I joined around three years later in March 2009. I was 13.</li><li>I've spent half my life on Twitter so, while I'm well aware of its dark sides, I can't give it up.</li></ul><p>Twitter turned 15 this year, after going live for the first time on March 21, 2006. It was launched to the public almost four months later, on July 15, 2006. It took me almost three years to join, but I found my way there on March 19, 2009. At the time, I was 13 years old, an eighth grader living in suburban Long Island, New York.</p><p>One of my first tweets has since been lost to the ether of the internet, but it was something like, "Waiting to get addicted to Twitter ..." Little did I know, within a few months, I would be constantly (and aimlessly) scrolling through my feed.</p><p>Instead, my earliest surviving tweet, which I made in November 2010, is a quote from "The Hangover."</p><p>Don't judge me - I had just turned 15 and was a sophomore in high school.</p><h2>Twitter has been a daily fixture in my life since 8th grade</h2><p>Twitter has been different things to me over the last 12 years. At first, it was just another outlet for a stream of consciousness, like Facebook statuses used to be. It became a place to share inside jokes or to perfect the art of a subtweet - a tweet about someone without actually naming them.</p><p>During high school, before the rise of iPhones, you'd have to text "40404" to get your tweets up. You could also choose to get certain people's tweets texted to you, and it became a test to see who had subscribed to get <em>your </em>tweets texted to them.</p><p>The texting mechanism, perhaps unsurprisingly, caused a few issues for my classmates. When someone accidentally tweeted what was meant to be a private mean text about someone who followed them, it led to a very public and uncomfortable Twitter exchange between the pair.</p><p>Figuring out who was subtweeting whom became a pastime of everyone in school, like cracking a code. It led to fights, relationship problems, and groups of friends airing their dirty laundry on the internet for the whole school to see - and I followed along with all of it, just like I followed along with celebrity drama in tabloids.</p><p>Scrolling through tweets from high school essentially presents a time capsule. I can track when I started watching "Friends" ...</p><p>... when I became obsessed with One Direction ...</p><p>... or when I moved to New Orleans for college.</p><p>By the time I got there, I was tweeting multiple times a day. My group of friends even had our own shared account that only followed us, so we could get a streamlined timeline (the Close Friends feed on Instagram of its time).</p><p>More than Facebook or Tumblr or Formspring or Vine or TikTok, Twitter takes me back. Reading my tweets from a specific time in my life, I remember exactly what I was doing, where I was, and who I was with. My high school and college experiences, and who I was at the time, are forever intertwined with Twitter.</p><h2>As I moved into adulthood, I saw the darker sides of Twitter</h2><p>I no longer only use Twitter to keep up with friends. Now, I use it to connect with co-workers, comedians, podcast hosts, potential interview subjects, or even celebrities. It's become a place where I find most of my news (or least a place to start) which, as we've learned, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-found-more-russian-bots-trump-interacted-with-many-2018-1">can be dangerous</a>.</p><p>It's shown me some of the darkest parts of the internet, and while I go to there laugh, I also go there to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/doomscrolling-explainer-coronavirus-twitter-scary-news-late-night-reading-2020-4">doomscroll</a> - the peculiar term for endlessly scrolling my feed during a negative news event to simultaneously find solidarity with other people by complaining or voicing anxiety, like <a href="https://themighty.com/2021/01/mental-health-how-to-stop-doomscrolling-news/">during the Capitol insurrection</a> in January 2021. It was almost impossible to look away from my feed for the week after, even if I tried - and I tried.</p><p>Since as far back as 2017, in fact, I've been complaining about Twitter and the toxic environment it fostered.</p><p>At this point, I feel like I turn to Twitter for the good and the bad: Twitter validates my existential dread while also serving me jokes about <a href="https://www.insider.com/bean-dad-john-roderick-thread-mbmbam-ken-jennings-tweets-song-2021-1">bean dads</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/andyneuenschwander/here-they-are-the-best-and-funniest-feral-hog-twe">30 to 50 feral hogs</a>. While I could probably work on the doomscrolling, Twitter still makes me laugh out loud with its inside jokes and memes. Watching (and live-tweeting) shows like "The Bachelor," "Game of Thrones," and "Stranger Things" have led to some of my fondest memories on the internet.</p><p>There's been much written about <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2017/7/12/16078066/game-of-thrones-hbo-tv-monoculture-535f73ad5014">the end of the monoculture</a>, but having a community on Twitter that shares my interests and sense of humor helps the world feel a bit smaller and more connected - even if it's not always the healthiest place to be.</p><h2>After nearly 12 years, I thought my relationship with the little blue bird had finally stabilized</h2><p>That is, until I woke up one morning to find out I had been verified due to my job at Insider. I thought about the 13-year-old me who had joined Twitter while dreaming about becoming the next Ryan Seacrest. She never, <em>ever, </em>would've thought I actually would get a job in media or get one of the coveted blue checks.</p><p>But the feeling was bittersweet. While teenage Gabbi would've been elated, 25-year-old Gabbi has mixed feelings. Amnesty called Twitter a "<a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2018/03/online-violence-against-women-chapter-1/">toxic place for women</a>" and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anti-semitic-incidents-on-rise/">anti-Semitism is on the rise</a> in this country, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/twitter-filled-with-anti-semitic-tweets-targeting-jewish-congress-members-study-says/">especially on the internet</a>. When you're verified on Twitter or Instagram, <a href="https://mashable.com/article/instagram-verification-harassment/">you're vulnerable to more hate</a>.</p><p>I haven't received anything too damaging yet, but I think more about what I tweet, taking an extra second to play out what trolls could say. As a journalist, I have more responsibility than I did in high school tweeting about how annoying my math teacher is, or as a college student complaining about failing multiple practice microeconomics finals.</p><h2>I don't think I'll ever be able to leave Twitter behind</h2><p>I've spent almost half of my life on Twitter. I've texted my tweets, tweeted from countless laptops, the Blackberry and iPhone Twitter apps, and even tried out UberTwitter, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-war-ubermedia-2011-2">may it rest in peace</a>.</p><p>Twitter has stressed me out, but my brain's been trained to think in 140 characters (I'll never be used to 280), and at this point, it's a reflex to wake up and check the app.</p><p>So, while I'm still getting used to this new landscape, and I'll still constantly complain that this app has been rotting my brain, I don't think I'll ever be able to shake it.</p><p>Or as I'd say on Twitter: I'll never be free of this hell site.</p>

I've been on Twitter for almost half of my life. Even though it's rotting my brain, I'll never give it up.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP</span></p><p class="caption">Former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner is required to report to federal prison by Monday.</strong></li><li><strong>He is sentenced to 21 to 27 months in prison after pleading guilty of sexting a 15-year-old girl.</strong></li></ul><p><br />Former Rep. Anthony Weiner is required to report to federal prison by Monday, according to <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/anthony-weiner-to-report-to-prison-by-monday/article/2639637" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">multiple</a> <keyword id="6355005" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="News">news</keyword> <a href="http://abc7ny.com/amp/weiner-to-report-to-prison-on-monday/2601856/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reports</a>.</p><p>The 53-year-old former congressman from New York was sentenced to 21 to 27 months in prison after pleading guilty to sexting a 15-year-old girl. Weiner's facility reportedly houses over 1,100 male inmates who need medical or mental care, including sex offender treatment, ABC 7 <a href="http://abc7ny.com/amp/weiner-to-report-to-prison-on-monday/2601856/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a>.</p><p>As a rising star in the Democratic Party, Weiner's career hit a wall after tweeting a sexually charged photo in 2011. Weiner <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-weiner-sexting-trial-timeline-2017-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">alleged</a> that his account was hacked, but later admitted he took the photo and resigned from congress.</p><p>Weiner made headlines again in 2013 during a failed run for New York City mayor, after screenshots of explicit Facebook and Formspring conversations between him and a 22-year-old woman were discovered. Weiner admitted to the act but said that he and Huma Abedin, his wife and aide to Hillary Clinton, were moving forward.</p><p>After more photos of sexual material were discovered in 2016, Abedin said she was separating from Weiner. One month later, the FBI and NYPD launched an investigation into messages he sent to the 15-year-old girl.</p><p>Weiner plead guilty to one count of transferring obscene material to a minor and said at his hearing, "I have a sickness, but I do not have an excuse."</p>      <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mccain-awarded-liberty-medal-warns-against-spurious-nationalism-2017-10">McCain warns against the rise of nationalism in a passionate speech after being awarded the Liberty Medal</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Anthony Weiner ordered to report to prison by Monday

<p>Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying, as in the case of this summer's surreal race for <keyword id="72226" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="New-York-City">New York City</keyword> <keyword id="9319" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mayor">Mayor</keyword>, which was hijacked in July by the revelation that disgraced former Congressman-turned candidate <keyword id="209183" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Anthony-Weiner">Anthony Weiner</keyword> was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-weiner-carlos-danger-sex-chats-report-2013-7">up to his old tricks.</a></p>
<p>When <a href="http://thedirty.com/2013/07/exclusive-anthony-weiner-sex-messages-post-scandal-with-another-woman-not-huma-abedin/">TheDirty.com</a> published an illicit exchange between Weiner and a woman named Sydney Leathers, Weiner admitted that he had continued to have inappropriate online relationships after resigning from Congress, but opted to stay in the race.</p>
<p>On the one hand, it's pretty disheartening that the battle for mayor of the largest city in America has been overshadowed by political slapstick. On the other, some of the stuff that's emerged from this scandal is so ridiculous you can't help but laugh. </p>
<p>Here are the ten most absurd things to come out of the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal, round two. </p>
<h1>#1 Slate's "Carlos Danger" <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/low_concept/2013/07/carlos_danger_name_generator_use_our_widget_to_get_a_name_like_anthony_weiner.html">name generator</a> </h1>
<p><div class="image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/low_concept/2013/07/carlos_danger_name_generator_use_our_widget_to_get_a_name_like_anthony_weiner.html">Screenshot/Slate</a></p></div></div></div></p>
<p>Nothing was more preposterous about this scandal than the pseudo-Spanish pseudo-superhero pseudonym Weiner picked for himself. Why shouldn't everyone be able to get in on the fun? Thanks to Slate, now everyone can have a sexting alter ego.</p>
<h1>#2 The Sydney Leathers porno, "Weinergate"</h1>
<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Official-Sydney-Leathers/156188341243196">Facebook/Sydney Leathers</a></p></div></div>In less-than-shocking news, the woman on the other end of Weiner's messages abandoned her desire for privacy in a matter of days, signing a deal with Vivid Entertainment to make a nude video describing all the things she and the mayoral candidate talked about doing to each other. </p>
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<h1>#3 The re-emergence of Formspring</h1>
<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source">AP</p></div></div>Technically, a lot of what Weiner did wasn't sexting, because instead of sending pictures and messages via text, he used Formspring. The site is most <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-formspring-2013-7">popular amongst teenagers</a> asking each other questions anonymously, but it does require a username to to answer, which is where Carlos Danger came from. </p>
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<h1>#4 The word "slutbag"</h1>
<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source">REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton</p><p class="caption">Anthony Weiner and spokeswoman Barbara Morgan</p></div></div>When Weiner spokeswoman Barbara Morgan heard that former campaign intern Olivia Nuzzi had given an unflattering interview to the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/intern-reveals-reasons-joining-weiner-campaign-article-1.1412272">New York Daily News</a>, she handled things with grace and maturity by launching into a brutal tirade in <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/07/top-weiner-aide-trashes-intern.php">Talking Points Memo</a>. Morgan called Nuzzi a "b***h," "slutbag," "twat," and "c**t" and threatened to sue, but later apologized and claimed she didn't know she was on the record. </p>
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<h2>#5 Profiles of Huma Abedin (and her <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/huma-abedin-red-lipstick_n_3643978.html">lipstick</a>) that seemed shocked she could walk and talk</h2>
<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source">AP</p></div></div>Everyone had something to say about Abedin, who had now weather two major sex scandals as Weiner's wife. Some people applauded her courage, others criticized her weakness, and some wanted her to run for office. Others were too busy being dazzled by her trip to the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/photos-huma-abedin-steps-haircut-article-1.1414682">spa</a>. </p>
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<h1>#6 Press Conference Floating Heads</h1>
<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source">NY1 Screenshot</p></div></div>Weiner's press conference immediately following the sexting revelation was <a href="http://www.politico.com/multimedia/video/2013/07/anthony-weiner-full-press-conference.html">ridiculous in itself,</a> but the scandal-ridden former Congressman couldn't keep the spotlight when a mysterious "Cubicle Guy" appeared over his shoulder. Mustachioed and bespectacled, the photobomber made Weiner's announcement that he would stay in the race even more circus-like. </p>
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<h1>#7 The Sydney Leathers "10-Step Guide to Sexting Politicians"</h1>
<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="https://twitter.com/sydneyelainexo">Twitter/Sydney Leathers</a></p></div></div>They say it's only a mistake if you don't learn if you don't learn from it. On Tuesday, Leathers published her own <a href="http://www.xojane.com/sex/sydney-leathers-guide-for-sexting-with-politicians">guide</a> for seducing and sexting politicians, complete with examples from her Formspring conversations with Weiner to back up her expertise. She reminds aspiring seductresses: "don't be too proud for a selfie."</p>
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<h1>#8 Anthony Weiner's shoe fetish</h1>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80824546@N00/4737901210">Flickr/infomatique</a></p></div></div>The exchange between Leathers and Weiners makes multiple references to shoes, specifically high heels, shining light on one of the politician's personal preferences. At one point, he expresses disappointment that Leathers didn't give him a sneak peak of a shoe picture; at another, she references "very tall gold wedges" when he asks for a description of her outfit. </span></p>
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<h1>#9 A complete disregard for numerical accuracy</h1>
<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source">REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton </p></div></div>For awhile, when Weiner admitted that the sexting that lost him his Congressional seat in 2011 had been far from an isolated incident, there were <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/anthony-weiner-admits-roughly-how-many-women-hes-had-online-relationships-with/">"a few" women.</a> Then there were "six to ten." Then "no more than three." By then, there were other numbers to worry about: Weiner's poll numbers had <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-weiner-carlos-danger-poll-nyc-mayor-christine-quinn-2013-7">dropped by 9 percent</a> in the mayoral race, and 55 percent of New Yorkers viewed him unfavorably. </p>
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<h1>#10 Headline Puns</h1>
<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><p class="source"><a href="http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=NY_DN&amp;ref_pge=gal&amp;b_pge=8">Newseum</a></p></div></div>They were practically unavoidable, but some were definitely better than others. The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-weiner-new-yorker-cover-king-kong-2013-7">New Yorker</a> won hands-down for concept and art, with a cover featuring Weiner as King Kong trying to sext while straddling the Empire State Building, but others, like the Daily News, were a little more on the nose. </p>
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The 10 Most Ridiculous Things To Come Out Of The Anthony Weiner Sexting Scandal

<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source">Boonsri Dickinson, Business Insider</p><p class="caption">An employee of Formspring</p></div><p></p></div></div></span>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A growing group of social and mobile Web services are poised to become the next Facebook Inc. Just ask them.</p>
<p>Online startups with eye-popping statistics that purport to show their popularity have captivated the attention of the media and investors. Companies boast of everything from skyrocketing Web page views to user sign-ups to shared digital photos as measures of their success.</p>
<p>But unlike the financial numbers used to evaluate more mature companies, the so-called "vanity metrics" now in vogue are largely self-reported and often vague enough to defy definition. With valuations for high-flying startups hitting nosebleed levels, some hear echoes of the obsession with "eyeballs," or raw numbers of website visitors, that defined the dot-com boom of the late 1990s but quickly proved to be an illusory measure of value.</p>
<p>"I wouldn't buy a pizzeria just because the phone is ringing off the hook," David Cowan, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, said in a telephone interview. "First, I have to understand who is calling, why, from where and can we really sell them pizza.</p>
<p>"People have to be careful about the extent to which they use these metrics as indicators of value," he said.</p>
<p>The issue came into focus last week when Snapchat, the hot mobile photo and video messaging startup, announced that its users send 400 million "snaps" every day just as reports surfaced that it had turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook.</p>
<p>The $3 billion offer shocked many given that the company, which lets smartphone users send vanishing pictures to each other, does not have any revenue. Some also wondered what the 400 million snaps actually referred to, and how they compared to the amount of photos shared on Facebook.</p>
<p>If a Snapchat user sends the same photo to 10 people, does Snapchat count it as 10 snaps or one snap, a widely discussed article asked last week in online publication BuzzFeed.</p>
<p>A Snapchat representative told Reuters by email that the 400 million snaps includes both photos and videos that users received but did not provider further clarification. The company said in a tweet last week that 88 percent of snaps are sent to one recipient.</p>
<p>Many of the self-reported user metrics are "black boxes," said Joe Beninato, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has founded and sold several Internet companies.</p>
<p>Of course, 400 million of anything is a big number and a sign that the company has achieved some level of success, he said. But he said a single metric alone might not tell the whole story and could even mask problems, such as a high user churn rate.</p>
<p>Pinterest, a social media scrapbook service whose last round of funding valued it at $3.8 billion, is only beginning to experiment with monetization. The company does not disclose its total number of users, but recently said that the service has 1.5 million travel-related "Pins" per day. The company, which declined to comment, does not publicly provide any data about its total number of users or their activity, though it ranks among the 50 most-visited websites in the United States, according to online measurement firm comScore.</p>
<p>Among the most the questionable metrics that are now commonplace are a company's number of registered users, which doesn't account for duplicate and dormant accounts; a messaging service's volume of messages, which could have been sent by either a very small, or a very large, number of users; and installations of mobile apps, which includes installations by customers who did not like a service and quit using it.</p>
<p>Even longstanding Web traffic metrics such as page views and unique visitors remain surprisingly open to interpretation, owing to divergent measurement techniques and standards.</p>
<p>The number of "active" users, defined as people who access a Web service at least once a month, could include automated software that looks like real users, driving up website page views and disseminating paid advertising links on social networks.</p>
<p>"Sometimes these companies don't take out the 'bots,' and if you take out the bots, then suddenly 40 percent of their traffic goes away," said Hans Swildens, the founding partner at Industry Ventures.</p>
<h3>MOM, POP AND BOTS</h3>
<p>For Web and mobile startup companies, proving robust growth in users and time spent with the product is critical to attracting media coverage, recruiting engineering talent and securing funding.</p>
<p>"I've been in plenty of meetings where people are discussing what information to release to the press to get the maximum impact, something that sounds good but doesn't give away too much information to competitors," Eric Ries, who is the author of the book "The Lean Startup" and has worked at several online companies, said by phone.</p>
<p>Choosing the right metric to release is a key decision within Web startups these days, said one public relations executive who advises Internet companies and asked that his name not be used.</p>
<p>"There's a lot of pressure to talk about these type of figures," he said. "Many companies are scrambling to help people understand the scope of their business."</p>
<p>A good metric is one that a company has confidence will grow reliably and remain the most relevant snapshot of the product's popularity going forward. But he noted that in some cases the practice has "devolved into this exercise of trying to appear big when you're not really big. It's almost this masquerade these days."</p>
<p>Venture capitalists, who typically evaluate hundreds of startups every year, say they know how to cut through the superficial metrics to find out how a company is really doing.</p>
<p>VCs look at the ratios of daily users to weekly users and monthly users to get a feel for how many repeat users a company has. They strip out growth that comes from unsustainable practices, such as online services that tap into a user's list of contacts to send "spam" messages, and they try to determine how "viral" a service is by measuring how many of a user's friends join.</p>
<p>But with the recent lifting of a long-standing ban on private company investment solicitation and a proposed "crowdfunding" rule that would allow mom-and-pop investors to bet on startup companies, consumer advocates fear less sophisticated investors could easily be misled.</p>
<p>"It's a very selective and dressed-up version of the facts," Barbara Roper, the director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, an association of nonprofit groups based in Washington, referring to the user metrics that companies provide, said by phone. "There's no standard of measurement. There's no comparability."</p>
<p>Even experienced investors can make mistakes. Viddy, a social video app, raised $30 million in funding in 2012 as investors jostled to get a piece of the company that was at one point adding more than 1 million new users a day.</p>
<p>"Their user-growth chart didn't go to a hockey stick, it went straight up a wall," an investor in Viddy, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to discuss the situation, said in a phone interview.</p>
<p>What many people didn't realize at the time, he said, was that Viddy's hyper-growth was mainly due to being one of the first video apps to take advantage of new distribution features on Facebook, rather than anything unique about the product itself. When Facebook suddenly tightened that distribution channel, Viddy's momentum came to a screeching halt.</p>
<p>Formspring, a social network which at one point was reported to have "2 billion answers to questions" posted on its website, shut down in March and was relaunched as Spring.me under a new management team.</p>
<p>Flud, a mobile news reader, was adding one user every four seconds shortly after its launch in 2010 - but closed shop in August.</p>
<h3>THE SMELL TEST</h3>
<p>Bessemer's Cowan notes that some metrics really do have value, pointing to his firm's decision to invest in professional social network LinkedIn Corp six years ago.</p>
<p>The fact that many LinkedIn users were inviting their friends to join the service, and that LinkedIn user profiles were appearing high up in search results on Google Inc's search engine suggested that the service was spreading in a meaningful way, he said.</p>
<p>The company was in its early days of generating revenue in 2007 - but the real growth potential was reflected in some of its nonfinancial metrics, Cowan said.</p>
<p>(With additional reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)</p>

Beware The 'Vanity Metrics' Used To Boost Tech Startups

<p><div class="image-container" style="width:800px"><div class="image"><p class="source">Facebook</p></div></div></p>
<p>Early in the morning Friday, August 2, Hannah Smith was found dead in her family home in Leicestershire, England. The 14-year-old had hanged herself, and was discovered in her bedroom by her older sister.</p>
<p>The motives behind suicide are often complex and it can be hard to discern one key trigger, but when Hannah's father checked her online trail, he was sure he had found it.</p>
<p>Hannah had been using a website called <a href="http://ask.fm/">Ask.Fm</a>, which allows people to post questions and have them answered anonymously. The website reportedly had more than 13 million unique visitors in June, meaning that Latvian-based website has eclipsed its similar rival Formspring, a<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-formspring-2013-7"> U.S.-based site used by NYC mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner for sexual purposes</a>.</p>
<p>For Hannah, the site offered something her real world apparently didn't provide — a chance to confide in an online community about the return of her childhood eczema and her recent depression. However, she didn't find support. When her father checked one message that described Hannah's habitual self-harming, she found that the anonymous users who had responded to the question were insulting her — telling her to "drink bleach," "go get cancer," and "die," <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/spotlight-on-ask-fm-after-teen-suicide-hannah-smith-cyberbullying">according to Channel 4</a>.</p>
<p>Hannah's father is sure these comments helped drive his daughter to suicide, and he wants something done about it. “How many more ­teenagers will kill themselves because of online abuse before ­something is done?" <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hannah-smith-dad-says-internet-2129280">David Smith told the</a> Daily Mirror. "These sick people are just able to go online and hide behind a mask of anonymity while they abuse vulnerable teenagers.<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; color: #000000; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.00347328186035px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">"</span></p>
<p>He also said he believes that the people who run the website should be convicted of "manslaughter."</p>
<p>Within the <keyword id="6361754" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="United-Kingdom">United Kingdom</keyword> there's a huge amount of sympathy for David Smith and his family. An online petition demanding that the government <a href="http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/48886">"step in and insist that Ask.fm and similar sites help us protect our young people"</a> is circulating. Just a few hours after it went live, the petition had more than 6,400 signatures. A Facebook page dedicated to Hannah has 45,000 "likes."</p>
<p>More broadly, there are growing signs the British public are becoming increasingly upset by online "trolls" who use their anonymity to harass and threaten others online. On Sunday, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/04/twitter-silence_n_3702928.html">dozens of prominent Twitter users went silent for 24 hours</a>, hoping to bring attention to vile threats that had been sent anonymously to a number of users. More than 130,000 <a href="https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/twitter-add-a-report-abuse-button-to-tweets">people have signed a petition asking Twitter to add a "report abuse" button to the service</a>.</p>
<p>The issue had been brought to light by Caroline Criado-Perez, a feminist campaigner, Stella Creasy, a member of Britain’s parliament, and Mary Beard, a classics professor, who began retweeting the rape threats they had <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/08/abuse-twitter">received from anonymous sources on Twitter at the end of July</a>. Their crime? Supporting a campaign to feature <a href="http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/jane-austen-bank-note-earns-huzzahs-and-nitpicking/?_r=0">Jane Austen on a 10 pound note</a>.</p>
<p>Right now, it's unclear what all this attention on online trolls will do. <keyword id="6354616" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Twitter">Twitter</keyword> <a href="http://blog.uk.twitter.com/2013/07/we-hear-you.html">has ruled out manually reviewing each tweet</a>, though it has updated its terms and conditions and attempted to make it easier to report abuse. Ask.fm's owners <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1124978/teen-suicide-after-troll-abuse-a-true-tragedy">have released a statement</a> that called Hannah's death a "true tragedy" and has promised to cooperate with police.</p>
<p>It's hardly a new problem (Channel 4 notes that at least four other teenagers have killed themselves after being bullied on Ask.Fm), but companies are not exactly compelled to regulate abuse online. The Economist <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/08/abuse-twitter">notes that the legal responsibility of websites</a> like Facebook and Ask.Fm depends quite a bit on how robust the abuse protocols the companies set up are — the more robust they are, the more liable they would be legally.</p>
<p>However, there may be a tipping point, and online companies should not be surprised if the British government does take steps to combat the problem of "trolls." While the United States may pride itself on free speech and many technological experts support anonymity online, the British government has no such qualms. What's more, David Cameron's Conservative government has shown itself willing to get involved in complicated matters of freedom online — take the ambitious (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/david-camerons-awkward-porn-ban-2013-7">maybe too ambitious</a>) plan to "ban" Internet pornography, for example.</p>
<p>There is another depressing takeaway though — even when confronted with their sadism, trolls frequently double down. Even as the controversy over online threats and anonymous insults raged, the trolls are still trolling; female Twitter users who complained about rape threats <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/05/twitter-bomb-threats-women">are now getting anonymous bomb threats</a>, and <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hannah-smith-vile-trolls-hijack-2130793">the Facebook tribute page to Hannah Smith has seen her branded</a> a "coward" and a "pathetic suicide case."</p>

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