Formspring

Ask me anything, anonymously: the Q and A site that reached 30 million accounts, then drowned in the harassment its own anonymity produced

Shut down
19902026

Formspring, launched in November 2009 by Ade Olonoh and John Wechsler in Indianapolis, put a question box on everyone's profile and let anyone ask anything, anonymously. It grew explosively among teenagers, reaching more than 30 million registered accounts and around 4 billion posts, and became a standard example in stories about online bullying. It stopped accepting questions on 31 March 2013; the remains were relaunched as Spring.me.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2009
  2. November 2009 Launch
    Formspring opens

    A question box on every profile.

  3. 2010
  4. June 2010 Peak
    Millions of teenagers join in months
  5. 2012
  6. 2012 Decline
    Ask.fm takes the audience

    The same idea with less moderation.

  7. 2013
  8. 15 March 2013 Shutdown announced
    Formspring announces it is closing
  9. 31 March 2013 Shutdown
    Questions are switched off

    Exports stay open until 15 April.

  10. May 2013 Acquisition
    The assets become Spring.me

The site through time

Browse formspring.me as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Formspring, Inc. 2009–2013 Founded Spun out of Formstack in Indianapolis
Twoo (Massive Media) 2013–2013 Acquisition Bought the assets and relaunched them as Spring.me

Key figures [edit]

MetricValueAs ofConfidence
Registered accounts ▲ 30 million 2012 Reported Registered accounts reported near the peak

Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Formspring announced on 15 March 2013 that it would stop taking questions on 31 March, saying it could not sustain the resources needed to keep the service running. Users could export their data until 15 April. The assets were bought in May 2013 and relaunched as Spring.me.

Our analysis: Formspring found the one feature that makes a teenager check a site forty times a day, an anonymous question box on their own profile, and it could not survive it. Anonymity brought the volume and then brought the abuse: the site became a fixture in news reports about bullying, which drove away advertisers and made parents hostile, while the moderation bill went in the opposite direction from the revenue. Ask.fm then took the same idea, moved the audience abroad and inherited the same problem. The site had 30 million registered accounts and no way to pay for them.

History [edit]

A box on your profile

Formspring came out of Formstack, an Indianapolis company that made web forms, and launched in November 2009 as a side idea: give every person a page where anyone could leave a question, then let them answer publicly. The answer appeared on the profile, the question could be signed or anonymous, and the whole thing was designed to be posted to Twitter and Facebook.

It spread the way things spread in 2010, through school year groups. Within months it had millions of users, mostly teenagers, and the phrase ask me anything entered ordinary use. The company raised money, moved to San Francisco, and reported over 30 million registered accounts and about 4 billion questions and answers.

The cost of anonymity

The same box that made the site popular made it a weapon. Anonymous questions turned into anonymous abuse, and Formspring appeared in a run of news stories about bullying and, in several cases, about teenagers who had taken their own lives. The company built moderation tools and a safety advisory board, but moderation at that scale costs money the site was not making, and advertisers were not keen on the surroundings.

By 2013 the audience had moved to Ask.fm, which was doing the same thing from Latvia with fewer scruples. On 15 March 2013 Formspring announced it would close: questions off on 31 March, exports until 15 April. In May the assets were sold and relaunched as Spring.me, a smaller service that eventually faded out too.

The domain today

formspring.me no longer serves profiles. The anonymous question box came back anyway, first on Ask.fm, then inside Instagram stories, where it is a sticker.

Similar projects

MySpace A place for friends 2003–now Google+ The social network everyone was signed up to and nobody used 2011–2019 Friendster The social network that came first 2002–2015 Bebo The $850 million write-off 2005–2013 Yik Yak Anonymous, local, and impossible to moderate 2013–2017 Orkut Brazil's living room, built in a 20% project 2004–2014

Sources [edit]

  1. Formspring, the pioneering anonymous Q&A platform, is shutting down TechCrunch 15 March 2013 [archived]
  2. Formspring shutting down due to resource constraints The Next Web 15 March 2013 [archived]
  3. Formspring to shut down Q and A service Forbes 15 March 2013 [archived]
  4. Spring.me Wikipedia 1 January 2024 [archived]

Last verified: 20 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).