Behance

Behance
Available inEnglish
OwnerAdobe Inc.
Key peopleScott Belsky; Will Allen; Zach McCullough
URLwww.behance.net
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional[a]
Users24,000,000+
LaunchedNovember 6, 2005; 18 years ago (2005-11-06)[1]

Behance, stylized as Bēhance, is a social media platform owned by Adobe whose main focus is to showcase and discover creative work.[2][3]

Behance was founded by Matias Corea and Scott Belsky in November 2005.[4] It was acquired by Adobe in December 2012.[5] As of October 2020, Behance had over 24 million members.[6]

History

Behance was founded by Matias Corea and Scott Belsky in November 2005.[7] The company initially relied on revenue, generating income by selling banner ads, job postings and later, 99U conference tickets. In May 2012, their first round of outside funding received $6.5 million from investors including Dave McClure and Jeff Bezos's personal investment firm, Bezos Expeditions.[8][9]

The company was acquired by Adobe Systems for $150 million in December 2012.[10][11] In 2021, Behance added a subscription feature for users to sell their tutorials and other services. It also added crypto wallet integration.[12]

Corporate affairs

Products

Users can sign up to Behance and build profiles consisting of projects. Both registered and unregistered users can view any particular project, as well as comment on them. Members of Behance can follow other users' profiles. Co-founder Belsky compared the first version of Behance's online porfolios with "project" structures as providing an organised art showcase, in comparison to DeviantArt and Saatchi's digital community.[13]

Adobe Portfolio

Adobe Portfolio (formerly ProSite) is Behance's DIY web design application, similar to popular tools such as Weebly and Joomla. It is a personal portfolio site creation tool on the web and it syncs with a user’s Behance project.[14] Adobe Portfolio can only be accessed by buying an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

Served sites

Content from the Behance Network gets fed into a network of sites called the Served sites, which display work in specific categories such as fashion, industrial design, and typography. In September 2010, more were added, including branding, digital art and toy design. In April 2012, advertising, art, architecture and more were added as categories.[15]

Action Method

Action Method is a productivity methodology targeting creative professionals. It includes a line of paper products (since 2014 sold by The Ghostly Store rather than Behance itself) and an online application called Action Method Online (although this was discontinued 1 June 2014). Its purpose is to connect every event with a set of specific tasks which the user can perform, called action steps.[16]

99U

99U is a consulting service and annual conference in New York City that focuses on marketing. The name 99U comes from the Thomas Edison quote that "Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration."[13] In 2011, 99U won a Webby Award for "Best Cultural Blog."[17]

Awards

  • 2009 Webby Award Finalist (The Behance Network) – Self-Promotion/Portfolio Category
  • 2009 Silicon Alley Insider Award Finalist – Most Loved Product or Service[18]
  • 2011 Webby Award Winner (The 99%) – Best Cultural Blog[19]
  • 2017 Webby Award Winner (Behance) – Community[20]

Criticism

Adobe's acquisition of Behance in 2012 prompted concerns that the company would start monitoring the activity of its users, which may limit users' trust in the site[21]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Registration is required for certain tasks.

References

  1. ^ "BeHance.net WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info - DomainTools". WHOIS. Retrieved 2016-12-09.
  2. ^ "News Analysis Adobe Behances The Creative Class With 150M Community Acquisition". blog.softwareinsider.org. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
  3. ^ "Adobe Acquires Social Media Platform Behance to Power its Creative Cloud Community". techcrunch.com. 20 December 2012. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
  4. ^ School Galleries on Behance Archived 2015-07-13 at the Wayback Machine, Behance.net
  5. ^ "Adobe Acquired Portfolio Service Behance For More Than $150 Million In Cash And Stock". TechCrunch. 21 December 2012. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  6. ^ Allen, Will. "What's new in the creative community". Adobe Blog. Retrieved 2022-07-09.
  7. ^ Staff, Inc (2019-02-27). "13 All-Star Founders Share the Single Best Piece of Advice They Ever Received". Inc.com. Retrieved 2019-07-24. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  8. ^ Empson, Rip (15 May 2012). "After 5 Years Of Bootstrapping, Behance Nabs $6.5M From USV, Jeff Bezos, Dave Morin & More". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2019-05-27. Retrieved 2020-05-18.
  9. ^ Cook, John (14 May 2012). "Amazon's Jeff Bezos backs Behance, a place for artists to showcase their talents". GeekWire. Retrieved 2020-05-18.
  10. ^ "Adobe Acquired Portfolio Service Behance For More Than $150 Million In Cash And Stock". TechCrunch. 21 December 2012. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
  11. ^ Carlson, Nicholas. "Here's Why Adobe Just Bought My Startup For $150 Million". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
  12. ^ "Adobe's Behance adds support for NFTs and paid subscriptions". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved 2022-08-16.
  13. ^ a b Belsky, Scott (2018). The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture. Penguin UK. ISBN 9780241981436.
  14. ^ "Interview with Founder of Behance: Challenges and Takeaways". zurb.com. Retrieved 2019-08-07.
  15. ^ Cunnane, Prof Vincent; Corcoran, Dr Niall (2018-06-21). ECSM 2018 5th European Conference on Social Media. Academic Conferences and publishing limited. ISBN 978-1-911218-84-5.
  16. ^ "How To Use The Action Method With Todoist". Productivityist. 2014-06-03. Retrieved 2019-08-07.
  17. ^ "2011 Webby Award Winners". Webbyawards.com. October 28, 2011. Archived from the original on January 26, 2012. Retrieved January 16, 2012.
  18. ^ "Congratulations To The Winners Of The 2009 Silicon Alley Awards!". Business Insider.
  19. ^ "Home". Archived from the original on 2012-01-26.
  20. ^ "Behance -- The Webby Awards". Retrieved 2019-04-14.
  21. ^ "Automated Graphic Design". Modes of Criticism. 2016-12-22. Retrieved 2019-09-18.