14 DAY TRIAL // What a rollercoaster ride! It’s more drama than in an episode of “The Young and the Restless,” but it seems that Twitpic, the service that allowed people to post pictures on Twitter before Twitter did, has dodged the final bullet and has been purchased by none other than Twitter.
Back in September, Twitpic announced that it was shutting down after Twitter pressured it into stopping to pursue trademark registration or have its API access revoked. The company gave people a few weeks to download their content before the service was stopped completely.
A few days later, the company’s CEO joyfully announced in a tweet that the company had been purchased and that it would survive still. Then, two weeks ago, Twitpic scratched that by saying that it was, indeed, closing on October 25 and that the deal they had hoped to reach didn’t happen after all. They apologized for giving everyone false hope, but that was the situation.
On the same day that the service was supposed to shut down, however, Twitpic made another announcement – it had been taken over by Twitter.
“We weren’t able to find a way to keep Twitpic independent. However, I’m happy to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to give them the Twitpic domain and photo archive, thus keeping the photos and links alive for the time being. Twitter shares our goal of protecting our users and this data. Also, since Twitpic’s user base consists of Twitter users, it makes sense to keep this data with Twitter,” writes the Twitpic team.
What this means for Twitpic
However, this means that Twitpic will no longer be taking on new photos or data and that the site will enter a read-only mode. The service’s iOS and Android apps have been removed from the app stores and will no longer be supported.
However, people will continue to be able to login to their profiles and delete content or even the accounts they have on Twitpic.com, while the export and download features for the data and photo archives on Twitpic.com are still available.
“This will be my final chapter with Twitpic, and again I want to say thank you for allowing me to be a part of your photo sharing memories for nearly seven years. It has been an honor,” wrote Noah Everett, the founder of the service.
The financial details of the deal are unknown, but at this point, they aren’t that important considering the weight of the deal for the many users of Twitpic.