Type of business Private | Area served Worldwide | |
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Type of site Social network service, ecommerce Headquarters Santa Monica, CA, United States Founder(s) John Ellis, Leo Resig, John Resig Key people John Ellis (CEO)
Alvin Fong (COO)
Joshua Bauer (CTO)
Brian Lee (Board Member)
Randall Kaplan (Board Member)
Leo Resig (Board Member)
John Resig (Board Member) | ||
Tapiture was a social discovery site and mobile app where people could find, share and buy content to share on social networks as well as products available for purchase. The platform identified users' interests by analyzing the images, video, products and other content they interact with on Tapiture, and then recommended new content based on that behavior. People could also add new content to Tapiture from other websites or from their phones to share with others.
Contents
Content on Tapiture was provided by the community. Tapiture required registration for full functionality, including adding content, which can be done via its mobile app (phone, camera roll, or web browser) and via Tapiture's browser extension. Web publishers could also implement a button to allow tapping of content directly from their site. Unlike other social networks, however, Tapiture also enabled the direct sale/purchase of consumer products via Tapiture's integrated ecommerce platform.
History
Leo and John Resig launched an early version of what would become Tapiture in the Summer of 2012. They were looking for someone to run it and were introduced to John Ellis through a mutual friend. They liked John's vision for the site, which was an integrated approach to content and commerce, and spun it out as a separate company. John joined as CEO in September 2012. John raised the capital required to hire the initial team and retool the site into a platform that would scale for a larger audience. John Ellis recruited serial entrepreneur, Brian Lee, to join Tapiture's board of directors. This is the only board Brian Lee is on outside of his own company, The Honest Company. Leo and John Resig also joined Tapiture's board of directors and continued to promote Tapiture via their Resignation Media properties, including the primary one, theChive. Tapiture attracted a large audience from theChive in the first year but quickly reached a completely new audience of millions of users. On October 2, 2015, haven been given no previous indication of its impending closure, Tapiture subscribers received the following email regarding the closing of the website:
"Dear friends,
Unfortunately, Tapiture is shutting down today. Thank you for supporting us over the last few years.
We know you loved Tapiture—and so did we. Sadly, it has become difficult to grow Tapiture as a standalone business, so this is the end of the road. Like you, we'll all miss it greatly.
You shared over 30 million of your favorite things and we would hate for you to lose them. Through Friday, October 9th, you can download a link archive of everything you’ve tapped by clicking the button below. After that date, Tapiture and all its data will be irrevocably inaccessible.
Thanks again for being a part of the journey.
Until we meet again,
Team Tapiture"
As of December 11, 2015, if you visit the Tapiture URL, it displays a message stating: "We are proud to announce that Tapiture has joined the Playboy family." Approximately a week before, subscribers to the Tapiture e-newsletter began receiving emails from Citizen Goods, an online commerce company powered by StackSocial. It appears (unconfirmed as of 2015DEC11) that control of the goods, sold by Tapiture's sales platform, has been transferred/sold to Citizen Goods. All previous accounts held by Tapiture appear to have been deleted and not transferred to either Playboy's or StackSocial's web holdings.
Usage & Demographics
Tapiture's visitors are split roughly 50/50 between U.S. and International traffic. The main age group consists of 24- to 35-year-olds, of which approximately 70% are males residing in metropolitan markets. Tapiture reported reaching 10 million monthly unique visitors in December 2014.
Funding
As of February 2014, Tapiture received a combined $2.25 million from angel investors, including Randall Kaplan, Barry Sterlicht, Brad Keywell, Brian Lee, Herb Simon, Hilary Swank, Amar'e Stoudemire, Dwight Howard and others.