Digital cameras and smartphones have not only changed the way photos are taken, but also the way they are stored and shared. Today, most people have graduated from standard photo albums to sharing photos online across a multitude of social media sites. 

With the explosion of social media, more and more people are sharing images on the Web every day. Most of us take for granted the ease and simplicity of image sharing with our friends, family and the rest of the world using photo sharing and social media websites in the comfort of our homes or on-the-go. For us to enjoy this capability that we now probably couldn’t live without, developers have created image-based apps using hosting and image distribution infrastructures.

Today, Imgur, a popular image-sharing platform on the Web among users of Reddit, Digg and Facebook, has introduced an enhancement API that gives Web, desktop, and mobile developers an easy way to use Imgur’s hosting and image distribution infrastructure for their own image-based apps. The company is dedicated to creating a fast, reliable infrastructure, delivering more than one billon images to the Internet.

“Imgur’s infrastructure was built to support uploading and sharing images on a massive scale because that’s the nature of our business,” said Schaaf, in a statement.

Known as “The Simple Image Sharer,” Imgur provides an easy service for sharing images on the Internet. The site features the Imgur Gallery, a real time collection of the most popular images being circulated on the Internet. Alongside its own growth, Imgur has observed a trend among Web and mobile application developers building apps around the interest in image sharing. 






 Image via Shutterstock

The convergence of Imgur’s infrastructure with the overflow of mobile apps has spurred the company’s development of a commercial API for mobile developers. To date, Imgur has issued more than 10,000 API keys and developers have built applications that range from desktop image uploaders to mobile applications. Noticing this innovative trend, Alan Schaaf, Imgur founder and CEO, said the company wanted to allow developers to gain better access the Imgur infrastructure.

“We’re now simply opening up that existing platform to other developers so they can leverage what we’ve built to support their own applications,” he continued.

Brand new features in Imgur API include:

• Simple user log-in through third party applications via OAuth2 integration
• Developer access of site functionality including new features released in the upgrade
• Standardized commercial use available for developers of all sizes

Schaaf said, “Building our image hosting business alongside our image sharing community means we’re looking at the long term goal to be sustainable, and not reliant on any single revenue stream.”

To try Imgur, visit http://imgur.com//.