Thumb
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
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Sections to complete：02 · 05
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Thumb was a New York opinion-based social network founded by Dan Kurani — launched in private beta in June 2010 as Opinionaided and rebranded as Thumb in 2011. Users asked questions and got near-instant responses from a highly engaged community (50-100 answers per question within minutes), thumbing answers up and down to build a sentiment picture. It grew to 1.2M registered users by 2012 (a 1.5M community by 2013), with 1.25B answers and 25M questions served, and raised ~$5.5M. It monetized through Thumb Pro ($95/month) giving brands and market researchers access to the community with up to 1,000 responses per question, age/gender targeting and sentiment filtering. On June 27, 2013 it merged with youth-research company Ypulse.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Launches as Opinionaided
Dan Kurani launches the opinion app in private beta in June 2010 as Opinionaided.
- Rebrands as Thumb
Opinionaided rebrands as Thumb, reflecting its addictive thumbs-up/thumbs-down voting; it pushes toward a full opinion-based social network.
- Merges with Ypulse
On June 27, 2013 Thumb merges with research insights company Ypulse, which leverages Thumb's mobile social network and feedback platform for youth insights.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN / AFTERMATH
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