Openverse, previously known as CC Search, was originally conceived as a prototype at Creative Commons.
Timeline
- February 2017: Launched as a prototype
- September 2018: Enters beta with a new design and more providers
- March 2019: Shifts focus from discovery to reuse
- April 2019: Comes out of beta with 300M+ images
- January 2020: Launches an extension for all major browsers
- May 2020: Celebrates 1 year out of beta (with ‘dogs’ and ‘cats’ as top 2 queries!)
- December 2020: Creative Commons puts the CC Search project into maintenance mode
- May 2021: Openverse officially joins WordPress
- To be continued…