Making photos their business
Today, online photo-sharing is a technological phenomenon, with billions of images shared daily via social media, image-hosting websites and mobile apps.Back in 2009, when photo-sharing had just become standard fare on social media and the launch of smartphones with built-in cameras had ushered in a “mobile sharing boom,” two MIT entrepreneurs saw photo-sharing as a unique business opportunity — and it paid off handsomely.While students at MIT, Inaki Berenguer MBA ’09 and Andres Blank MBA ’09 created Pixable, a Web and mobile app that uses algorithms to scan a user’s social-media accounts, collect the most relevant photos, and aggregate them in one place. To commercialize the app, the two co-founded Pixable in an MIT dorm, later relocating to New York. The startup soon garnered millions in funding and its technology began receiving praise in tech circles as a valuable social-photo organizing tool. Last year Pixable, which had accumulated five million...