Imgur, Reddit’s favorite image hosting service (and yours too, perhaps), is today bringing its Meme Generator, launched last summer on the web, to the iPhone. The utility allows users to quickly create memes, remix those made by others, or simply browse those in the gallery, save or vote for your favorites. Talk about a killer time-waster!
The company first launched its meme generation utility this past July following the ban of another popular meme source, Quickmeme, from Reddit where it was using bots to downvote memes from competitors. On the web, Imgur’s own Meme Generator was easy enough to use with a straightforward interface that lets you step through the creation process in only a matter of seconds.
The launch was a part of Imgur’s larger efforts to become more of destination site for viral images, something that has also required the company to focus on its mobile efforts, which it has done through its own Imgur photo apps and developer API to enable third-party applications. Unfortunately for Imgur, its delay to attack mobile in earnest allowed other developers’ apps to stake their own claims on the App Store, where now Imgur’s own app isn’t in the top charts, and ranked just #500 in the “Entertainment” category in the U.S. (On Android, however, it does better – it’s ranked #133 in “Entertainment,” according to App Annie.)
But the Meme Generator app could potentially help Imgur get back into the rankings, as it taps into one of the more popular use cases for Imgur itself.
Since its debut, Imgur’s web-based Meme Generator has been doing well, says the company. Over the last 30 days, Imgur saw 135,000 total memes created, with 40,000 different memes (meaning, different backgrounds) added. The company itself blew past 100 million unique monthly visitors this fall, and achieved profitability. More recently, the company has been the subject of Yahoo acquisition rumors, but then again, who hasn’t? Wait, that gives me an idea for a new meme…oh shoot, someone beat me to it.
The new MemeGen iOS application is available for download here.