4chan Founder Unleashes Canvas On The World.

Canvas launches today for 4,000 or so lucky souls.

Seven year old 4chan, created by now-23 year old Christopher Poole, continues to delight and enrage the Internet. Major Internet memes were either created or spread on 4chan, as were more denial of service attacks than we can count. Twelve million or so people a month visit the site, and at any given moment there are 60,000 – 70,000 people on 4chan.

4chan’s success, says Poole, is based on three things. Real time collaboration as visitors riff back and forth about posted items, often pictures. A true shared experience as an item pops up on 4chan and then eventually falls off the board (there are no archives). And fluid identity – to add content on 4Chan all you have to do is write something, upload a file and complete a captcha. There are no user accounts.