Twitpic to Shut Down on September 25th

Posted on September 4, 2014

Twitpic has announced it will be shutting down its photo sharing service on September 25th. During its peak, Twitpic was one of the most frequently used photo sharing services on Twitter. Twitter has since added its own photo tool, which uses a pic.twitter.com url followed by a unique series of letters and numbers. Lots of Twitter users also use Instagram for photos even though these photos do not show up in the Twitter stream.

The loss of Twitpic means there will be a lot of file not found errors in old tweets. Many celebrities used to use Twitpic when sharing pictures on Twitter.

Twitpic is blaming Twitter directly for its closure. Twitpic founder Noah Everett writes in a blog post that Twitter threatened to take away their access to the Twitter API if they would not abandon their trademark application. Everett says Twitpic originally filed for a U.S. trademark for Twitpic in 2009 with a first use date of 2008.

Everett says, "Unfortunately we do not have the resources to fend off a large company like Twitter to maintain our mark which we believe whole heartedly is rightfully ours. Therefore, we have decided to shut down Twitpic."

The post also says Twitpic will be offering a photo and video export tool in the next few days. This will make it easy for Twitpic users to export all their photos and videos.

Everett added in a tweet, "Thank you everyone who used @Twitpic & allowing me the honor of helping share your experiences. I will miss & cherish our days of Twitpic!"

Update 10-25-14: Twitpic reached a deal with Twitter to give Twitter the Twitpic domain and photo archive. This means Twitter users will still have access to their Twitpic photos in a read-only mode.