What constitutes a successful community website? There are many characteristics that determine whether I am personally willing to invest my time and emotions in an online community. These include the type of community, entertainment value, how it operates, its corporate culture, functionality and the platforms it uses. Imgur is an image hosting site that I believe objectively and subjectively meets these criteria. This subjective report will provide a personal analysis of Imgur and justify why I believe it is a well thought out and effective website that meets both user expectations and the company's business objectives. BackgroundImgur is an image hosting service that is updated and maintained through user-submitted content. It was founded by Alan Schaaf in 2009 (Slater-Robins, 2013). His intention was to create the most popular image sharing site on the web. Imgur was fostered by its experiences with the popular news site Reddit, which provides its community with a place to discuss political issues (Slater-Robins, 2013). Reddit is known for not being visually pleasing and having a difficult interface to navigate. Imgur was then created from this unmet market demand, providing the online community with a simpler user experience, but with the same innovative content. Business Model: CommunityImgur uses a community business model that facilitates the connection of millions of users around the world. They currently have over 70 million devoted consumers visiting the site (Slater-Robins, 2013). Imgur has created a global village, where distances are canceled and the opinions of different cultures and countries come together to be shared. This has produced a subcult with similar ideas… half the paper… and Imgur loading speed. Overall it provides its community with a safe place for social interaction of like-minded people. This website not only meets the expectations of its community, but also uses its community to achieve its business goals, thus creating a mutually beneficial relationship. I believe there are no negatives to this site.Works CitedGruder, CL (1971). Determinants of social comparison choices. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 473-489.Imgur. (2014). http://store.imgur.com/pages/privacy-policy. Retrieved from http://imgur.com/.Pingdom. (2014). Pingdom website speed test. Retrieved from Pingdom: http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/duFDXv/http://imgur.com/Slater-Robins, M. (2013, April 21). From Rags to Riches: The Story of Imgur. Retrieved from neowin: http://www.neowin.net/news/from-rags-to-riches-the-story-of-imgur