14 DAY TRIAL // Photo sharing app Picplz is shutting down come July 3rd. The service will be gone, but people have a chance to get their photos out before the deadline. Picplz started out as many other photo sharing apps when it was the hot new thing.
But, like all other hot new things, location-based apps or group messaging apps before it, or video sharing apps now, they flame out fast.
Most of the time, one app or site will emerge out of the fray and get ahead. Sometimes, the idea is so flimsy, no app emerges as a winner, at least not one that will ever make money.
In the photo sharing space, Instagram is the clear winner. It never made any money and it was not going to for a long time, but it cashed out big time with the Facebook acquisition.
But with Instagram acquired, the race is over, and everyone else has to pack up and go home, or simply wither out slowly.
"It has been a pleasure bringing picplz to our users, but we have decided to move on to other projects and have made the tough decision to shut it down," Picplz's blog read.
The problem with any service shutting down is that some people actually use it and those people still have data there. In this case, it's personal data and it's something they may not have anywhere else. Luckily, users can retrieve all of their photos for safe keeping.
"On July 3, 2012, picplz will shut down permanently, and all photos and user data will be deleted. Until then, users may download their own photos by clicking on the download link next to each photo in their photo feed," Picplz explained.
That may seem like a bad joke, but it's a sad one. Users have to download each photo, one by one, by hand. It speaks volumes about the service, perhaps most people don't have more than four or five photos so this isn't a problem, and the company, which can't be bothered to take 15 minutes and provide a link to download all photos at once.