It sounds like a Pleistocene computer, but in 2002, when “selfie” or “influencer” still sounded like weird foreign words, and Mark Zuckerberg was taking his first classes at Harvard, the Internet gave birth to a social network that, for a time, seemed unstoppable: The Photographer. If you were a teenager 20 years ago, you’ll definitely remember when O-Zone or Aqua hit it hard. If not, nothing happens. Fotolog is easier to explain than most existing networks. It was basically a blog where you posted photos waiting for comments or at least to see how the hit counter went up.

It sounds simple and it was. So much so, in fact, that the platform initially only allowed you to upload a single photo per day and get 20 comments, unless you subscribed to a paid version. If you scratched your wallet and accessed the “Golden” account, the margin was expanded to six images and interactions multiplied by ten. Neither more nor less. Sounds strange today; but that day Fotolog caught the attention of a fan base and prepared the ground for future networks.

In a way, it was the “baptism” of a generation on social platforms.

From meteoric growth to oblivion

His success resonated and made him a phenomenon, especially among the youth. Kids of the first decade of the 2000s uploaded photos of their holidays, party nights, outings, montages made with Paint to celebrate their birthdays, and “selfies” taken with the help of the living room mirror – the front camera wasn’t there yet. weathered—… Until, over the years, it shaped the visual memory of an entire generation. Perhaps the most curious thing about its history is that after a while, when these users were in their thirties, Fotolog became active again and reanimated all those images. Longing for some. For majority of blushes.

Today Fotolog is little more than a memento. It leaves a trace, yes; but if you go to the domain or download the app you will see they have it. nothing to do with network from the 2000s.

What happened to Fotolog?

Its history stretches back almost 20 years to April 2002, in the hands of Adam Seifer and Scout Heiferman. The idea was simple: to create a platform where you can share photos at a time when digital cameras are commonplace and cell phones are starting to use their own lenses. Its simple, controlled-use proposal was appreciated, and the website has grown to more than 20 million users in five years, making it one of the 20 most visited sites on the internet. It added 750 million more users in 2005, according to Alexa’s data. The monthly pageviews and growth were so fast that it had to limit the number of records it could process per day and country.

its dynamic very similar to the blogBesides being based on images, it was much easier to create content and facilitated the creation of communities and interaction between users. The vehicle worked particularly well in South America. In 2008, La Tercera remembers that Chile alone had 4.8 million users. Despite this growth – reaching 33 million accounts in 2013 – the platform failed to adapt to smartphones or generate enough profits, an added problem to an ever-changing online scene and the arrival of other platforms without the restrictions of Fotolog, for example: MySpace, Facebook or Flickr or Instagram .

Its drift throughout the second half of the decade is marked by several milestones. In 2007, French group HiMedia bought Fotolog for $90 million and in 2012 sought to reconnect with the public and distance itself from the competition on Instagram, which launched two years ago, with a design change. It was of little use. After a long period of oblivion, at the beginning of 2016 the official website stopped responding and its apps disappeared from both Google Play and the App Store.

The network that a good portion of millennials had released into the online arena had disappeared. And it’s an unexpected, silent gesture that has caused quite a bit of criticism, without emotional goodbyes or warnings for former users to be able to save their photos. Perhaps the best indication of the change of time was that #Photologue trended on Twitter with nostalgic messages, but also those complaining about not having the opportunity to save their memories. Others directly wondered about their fate.

However, it turned out to be More “see you” than a “goodbye”. A year later, Fotolog announced it was working on revamping its platform, and two years later, in 2018, it surprised older teens, then returned already full of young people with their old “treasures” with jobs, cars and, in some cases, a mortgage. selfies and photomontages. It’s like a lost album where a beautiful day reappears at the bottom of the drawer. Its purpose: to stand out from other social networks. To achieve this, he even brought back the old rule that only allowed one day of broadcasts.

😢☠️ Sad and nostalgic news: #photographer It hasn’t been working for two days and I won’t be back → [https://t.co/s3OYOgchu5] pic.twitter.com/5tD2hJ7wbe

— OhMyGeek! (@OhMyGeek) January 6, 2016

The person who kept the old e-mail account can access Fotolog profiles again and rediscover images they haven’t seen in years. For those who lost their passwords, the company had another solution: fill out a form and pay a fee of three euros. It also launched an app. In total, he calculated that he had two million users spread across more than 100 countries, the same users active in 2016; however, his return did not allow him to regain the golden stage he had lived through in the early years of the 21st century, ten and a half years ago.

What happened then? There is a listing on the Fotolog.net website explaining that as of September 2019, the domain, along with Fotolog.com’s, was acquired by different Thinking firm for inclusion in its portfolio. domain name. If you look at the Fotolog.com website today, you’ll find a magazine about entertainment, games, and travel, among other content. It’s the same main app you can download from the Play Store.

What remains of Fotolog in the early 2000s is a fundamental and, who knows, a glowing book of teenage photos that pushes us towards new networks. maybe one day it will show up.