TwitPic

History

TwitPic was launched in 2009 by Noah Everett.{{cite web | access-date = January 19, 2009 | archive-date = February 13, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120213231023/http://twitpic.com/about.do | url-status = dead In an interview with Mixergy, Everett revealed that he had been offered a price in the range of 10 million US dollars for his company but he declined the offer.{{cite web | access-date = January 17, 2010}} In 2011, Everett launched Heello, a service that also supports text posts and videos but is less dependent on Twitter. TwitPic's first app was released on 7 May 2012.{{cite web | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120525074455/http://itunes.apple.com/app/twitpic/id523490954?mt=8 | url-status = dead | archive-date = May 25, 2012 | access-date = May 7, 2012}}

Starting mid-2011, Twitter users could upload photos directly, reducing the need to use services like TwitPic.

On September 4, 2014, TwitPic announced that it would shut down on September 25, 2014, following rapidly declining usage and trademark infringement threats by Twitter (who threatened to revoke access to the service's APIs if they did not withdraw their filings to trademark "TwitPic"). However, shortly afterward on September 18, 2014, TwitPic announced that it would not shut down, as it had been acquired by an unspecified company. However, the following month, TwitPic announced that the deal had fallen through, and that they would shut down on October 25, 2014.

Description

TwitPic could be used independently of Twitter as an image hosting website similar to Flickr. However, several characteristics made this site a companion for Twitter:

• TwitPic uses usernames and passwords from Twitter
• Comments to photographs are sent as reply tweets
• TwitPic URLs are already short, making it unnecessary to use URL shortening

Anyone with a Twitter account was eligible to post pictures on the site. , TwitPic altered their terms of use, allowing them to distribute the photographs people have uploaded to their "Affiliates". However, TwitPic refused to state who these affiliates may be and what they gain by distributing the pictures. This triggered a public inquiry by users over the possibility of TwitPic publishing user content without compensation. As a result, people began boycotting TwitPic and removing all of their images. TwitPic addressed these concerns in a blog post, claiming that the changes in the terms had been misinterpreted.

Related applications

TweetDeck, Echofon, Tweetie, Twitfile, and Twitterrific are iPhone applications that could upload photos to TwitPic.{{cite web | access-date = January 19, 2009 | archive-date = 2012-07-17 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120717050709/http://www.informationweek.com/ | url-status = dead | access-date = April 10, 2009 | archive-date = July 15, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120715234126/http://twitterfon.net/how-to-use.html | url-status = dead ÜberTwitter, OpenBeak and Twitter for BlackBerry are BlackBerry applications that had the capability of uploading images to TwitPic. WebOS phones could upload images to TwitPic using the Tweed application. Android phones could upload pictures to TwitPic with the Twidroid and Seesmic applications. Windows Phone devices could upload pictures to TwitPic with the TouchTwit application. All INQ mobile phones had the capability of uploading a picture immediately after it was taken due to the social networking nature of the phone.

Both the official Twitter for Android and Twitter for iPhone applications featured TwitPic as an option for sending pictures to Twitter. (Yfrog was another popular picture-sending option offered by both applications.)

According to a report by Sysomos, , TwitPic was the leading third-party image hosting service for Twitter. Of the nearly 2.25 million daily image shares on Twitter, 45.7% of them came from TwitPic.{{cite web | access-date = June 2, 2011 | archive-date = August 2, 2011 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110802233224/http://blog.sysomos.com/2011/06/02/how-people-currently-share-pictures-on-twitter/ | url-status = dead

In media

In January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 experienced multiple bird strikes and had to be ditched in the Hudson River after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Janis Krums, a passenger on one of the ferries who rushed to help, took a picture of the downed plane as passengers were still evacuating, and tweeted it via TwitPic before traditional media arrived at the scene.{{cite web | access-date = January 19, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090122215059/http://freep.com/article/20090116/BLOG01/90116045/1009 | archive-date = 2009-01-22}}{{cite news | access-date = January 19, 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090119232453/http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/01/16/2009-01-16_twitter_grabs_spotlight_with_janis_krums.html | archive-date = 2009-01-19 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090122031557/http://industry.bnet.com/media/1000607/whats-more-important-citizen-journalist-coverage-of-a-plane-crash-or-the-plane-crash-itself/ | url-status = dead | archive-date = January 22, 2009 | access-date = January 19, 2009}} TwitPic also crashed on April 1, 2009, as a result of the large number of photos (and people viewing these photos) being posted from the G20 protests in London.

References

References

1. "Twitpic's Future - Twitpic Blog". twitpic.com.
2. "Twitpic is shutting down".
3. "Twitpic says it won't be shutting down after all". The Verge.
4. Williams, Owen. (October 26, 2014). "Twitter acquires TwitPic's photo archive to kep it alive". [[The Next Web]].
5. (2011-05-12). "Twitpic angers users over copyright grab". BBC News.
6. (May 10, 2011). "Your content, your copyrights". TwitPic.
7. [http://blip.tv/file/3082234/ How TwitPic is bringing in over $1.5 mil a year from simple Twitter app] {{Webarchive. link. (2010-01-17)