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Airliners.net

Airliners.net
Screenshot
Airliners.net homepage
Type of site
Aircraft photo database, aviation forum
OwnerTorstar
(VerticalScope)
Created byJohan Lundgren, Jr.
RevenueAdvertising
URLwww.airliners.net
CommercialYes
LaunchedMay 23, 1997; 27 years ago (1997-05-23)[1]
Current statusActive

Airliners.net is a Canadian-owned, Australian-based[2] global aviation website that includes an extensive photo database of aircraft and airports, as well as a forum catering to aviation enthusiasts. Inititally Swedish-based, created by Swede Johan Lundgren, Jr., the site originated in 1996 as Pictures of Modern Airliners. It was acquired by the US company Demand Media (now known as Leaf Group) in 2007, and underwent a major redesign in 2016.

History

Johan Lundgren, Jr., an IT student/aviation enthusiast attending Luleå University of Technology in Sweden, created the site Pictures of Modern Airliners in 1996.[3][4][5] Lundgren had been working on the site during his military service. It initially hosted only his own aircraft photos before a new section was created for other photographers to upload their photos.[3][6]

In 1997, Lundgren transitioned to a new site entitled Airliners.net and established a web server in his dormitory room. Three more servers were added, and eventually all servers were relocated to the computer rooms at the university. Lundgren started investing all of his time into the site, although he received help from a growing number of volunteers.[3]

On 27 July 2007, Lundgren announced that the site would be acquired by Demand Media. It was sold to the company for US$8.2 million.[7] Reasons behind the decision included the difficulty of managing the rapidly growing site, which was by that point supported by 25 servers.[8]

As you probably know, Airliners.net keeps growing year after year with more photos, more forum posts, more visitors, more users and more photographers. This is fantastic. I could never in my wildest dreams have imagined this success when I started the site ten years ago.

And what comes with success?? Managing it. And I know you have felt some of the growing pains. There are infrastructure issues – like trying to stay on top of the hardware needs of this site but complexities and the site’s growth have caused outages. What started in my dorm room on one computer is now supported by 25 – and that’s not including all the network gear.

And there are administrative issues. Growing the site, supporting the community and keeping things running takes a big toll on me – All Crew groups have long lists of bugs I need to fix and administrative features I need to add.

— Johan Lundgren Jr., "Big News On The Future Of Airliners.net"[8]

A revamped site was launched on 14 June 2016.[9]

In February 2017, the site was acquired by VerticalScope, majority-owned by Torstar.[10][11]

Membership

The site offers free membership, using online advertising instead as a source of revenue. Before the June 2016 redesign, Airliners.net provided three levels of membership: the Photographer Account, Premium Membership and First Class Membership. The latter two required payment, while a Photographer Account could be created for free.[12]

Features

The site has two main features: the photo database and the forum. The database contains over 2.7 million photos with over 8.6 billion total views as of June 2016.[13] All photos undergo screening prior to being admitted to the database, which can be searched by various factors including aircraft type, the airport at which the photo was taken and the aircraft registration. The forum is divided into ten subforums: Civil Aviation; Travel, Polls & Preferences; Technical/Operations; Aviation Hobby; Aviation Photography; Photography Feedback; Trip Reports; Military Aviation & Space Flight; Non-Aviation; and Site Related. Airliners.net also offers a complimentary newsletter service and a database of information on aircraft types developed with the help of Aerospace Publications.[14]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Airliners.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info - DomainTools". WHOIS. 2016. Archived from the original on 2021-07-12. Retrieved 2016-02-22.
  2. ^ "About Us | Airliners.net".
  3. ^ a b c Rothfischer, Brigitte (February 2005). "Best of Airliners.net" Archived 2007-03-09 at the Wayback Machine (in German). Aero International: 6–13. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  4. ^ Haugen, Petter (10 September 2000). "Nettstedet for deg med flydilla" (in Norwegian). DinSide Reise. Archived at the Wayback Machine on 7 July 2001. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  5. ^ Lundgren, Johan (1 September 1997). "Pictures of Modern Airliners" Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 25 February 2016.
  6. ^ Lundgren, Johan (21 January 1997). "Your Aviation Photos" Archived 2016-03-31 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 25 February 2016.
  7. ^ Grosz, Denis. "Highlights and Analysis of Demand Media’s IPO Filing" Archived 2016-01-20 at the Wayback Machine. Denis Grosz. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  8. ^ a b Lundgren, Johan (27 July 2007). "Big News On The Future Of Airliners.net" Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine. Airliners.net. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  9. ^ "We'll be back shortly". Airliners.net. Archived from the original on 14 June 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  10. ^ "Announcement: Airliners.net has been acquired by VerticalScope". Archived from the original on 2017-06-23. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
  11. ^ "Home – VerticalScope Inc". Archived from the original on 2020-09-21. Retrieved 2020-12-05.
  12. ^ "Airliners.net Membership". Airliners.net. Archived from the original on 15 August 2012. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  13. ^ "About Airliners.net". Airliners.net. Archived from the original on 29 June 2016. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  14. ^ "Aircraft Technical Data & Specifications". Airliners.net. Archived from the original on 24 June 2016. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
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