Syncpad

Syncpad is an American entertainment website owned by Syncpad Inc., a company based in Orlando, Florida. The website's content primarily consists of user-generated short stories and create -style posts. The website is best known for its, as it was the original drive behind the site.

Syncpad Inc. was founded on January 2, 2005 by Steven Watana, Nathan Webster, and Logan Zucker, and the website was launched on January 22, 2005. The Syncpad website has more than 103 million active users and over 498 million total accounts. It is one of the most visited websites as of May 2021.

2004–2005: Origins
Syncpad was initially conceived by Steven Watana, a computer programmer and software designer, shortly after he graduated from the (UCF) in 2004. He was at a meeting held by technology company Optique in February 2004 when he envisioned a website where users could "publish stories from various genres [...] especially including " for free. However, Watana was "laid off" from the company one week later for repeatedly showing up late. He teamed up with businessman and fellow UCF graduate Nathan Webster to further develop the website. The two simply referred to the website as "the fic site", and would use the project code name sync in text messages.

On January 2, 2005, Watana and Webster worked with former Luxpad employee Logan Zucker to form Webzuckana Corporation, the company name being a portmanteau of the founders' surnames. The company quickly acquired Webship.com—a content shsring website owned by Luxpad co-founder Kevin Carlyle which Zucker described as "practically abandoned"—and then shut the website down. Development of Syncpad was furthered by Zane's involvement. The domain  was registered on January 3. The first Syncpad post, a short story titled The Story, was published by Steven Watana himself at 12:38 p.m. . The entire story reads:
 * This is a story. This story was published on Syncpad.com. Go ahead, give writing a try yourself.

The story has over 3.3 million likes as of May 2023.

2005–2008: Initial reactions
On January 8, 2005, a prototype of Syncpad was made available to the public. The full website was made available to the public on January 22, 2005. The site was promoted as a "meeting room for fans". By the end of 2005, the website had reached 1,000 registered users, many of whom had supposedly migrated from lesser known fan fiction websites because they were upset about their management.

The for Syncpad's popularity was the 2006  conference. During the event, site usage largely increased. Syncpad was given the Web Award prize, which especially drew attention to the website. It reached one million registered users before January 2007, and three million users in March 2007, which many sources cite as bringing Syncpad to "mainstream popularity".

Watana and Webster constantly found themselves at odds with Zucker over the website's layout and management. The feuds ended in 2008, when Watana and Webster voted Zucker off the Webzuckana board. However, in February 2008, Watana and Webster agreed to merge Zucker's dormant company, Zeemedia, with Webzuckana to form Syncpad Inc., and Zucker "technically returned to the board".

2008–2013
In February 2008, Syncpad received a total of $5.4 million in funding from Sideshow Ventures and. In October 2008, it received $7.8 million in funding by McLeod & Dobson and Schultz Group.

Zucker left Syncpad Inc. completely in December 2008, stating that the company had gone through "too many leadership shakeups". At the time, Watana was the (CEO), while Webster served as  (CFO). Shortly after Zucker left, Syncpad acquired software developer Thertytoo to assist in the development of the mobile app.

In March 2011, Syncpad receive $8.8 million funding from Shapiro Harmon, Suburban Ventures, and the Lewis Nelsen Group. On April 7, 2011, the website unveiled "the new site", an update that completely overhauled the old design in favor for a more simplistic and user-friendly design. However, glitches and site traffic caused the site to display a slower version of "the old site".

2013–2016
On June 7, 2013, Canadian-born businessman Fabien Bouvier was appointed President of Syncpad.

Syncpad announced in December 2014 that it would make changes to its content rating system. (See Ratings.) Originally, Syncpad used the (MPAA) —G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17—for rating stories. However, due to orders, a new system was introduced—General Audiences (GA), Parental Guidance (PG), Thirteen Plus (13+), Mature Audiences (MA), and Adults Only (AO).

In July 2016, the website was hacked by BakaSec, and over 23 million of its 110 million users were reportedly locked out of their accounts. Syncpad administrators resolved the issue.

2016–present
On August 17, 2016, Fabien Bouvier stepped down as President of Syncpad. He was succeeded by Stephanie Freemason.

The interface was overhauled again on November 27, 2018, to better match the mobile app. It included lighter colors (with an option for darker colors) and capabilities. Due to copyright issues over the use of preexisting fictional characters, the home page was also edited to focus more on original storytelling.

In October 2019, the website introduced a microblogging feature after pressure from the user base that began several years earlier. This was described by Watana as "allowing users to stay up-to-date with their favorite authors" and "further connecting the community". During that month, over 3.4 million accounts activated the feature.

The site rose exponentially in popularity once again during the worldwide due to stay at home orders. Between February 2020 and February 2022, the number of account registrations reportedly saw a 69% increase. The pandemic also renewed interest in the website in general.

On March 26, 2022, over 1.9 million lesser known accounts were terminated for publishing sexual stories involving child characters. This was as part of an attempt to "curb Rules of Conduct violations on Syncpad". However, over 425,000 of those accounts were reinstated because they were deleted due to a "glitch in [the] system". Emails were sent to falsely terminated users containing apologies for the "techno-mishap".