Fotopedia was launched in June 2009 by five former Apple employees: Jean-Marie Hullot, Bertrand Guiheneuf, Manuel Colom, Sébastien Maury and Olivier Gutknecht.

[3] The range of topics varied widely from precise locations, music bands or species to countries and famous people.

[5] Fotopedia also had several social networking features, such as a profile page and ability to interact with other users and content.

[3] Fotopedia supported Creative Commons licenses, enabling photos to be reused throughout the encyclopedia.

As a reason for the site's discontinuation, the founders listed that they believed "there [was no] suitable business in [the concept of storytelling] yet.