Twitpic, the Twitter-integrated photo-sharing service, announced Thursday that it is shutting down operations on Sept. 25 as a result of trademark disputes with the company it relies on for business, Twitter. In an official blog post, Twitpic founder Noah Everett expressed his despair in letting go of the company, which he founded in 2008. Everett called the demise of Twitpic "unexpected and hard."
"We're sad to see Twitpic is shutting down. We encourage developers to build on top of the Twitter service, as Twitpic has done for years, and we made it clear that they could operate using the Twitpic name. Of course, we also have to protect our brand, and that includes trademarks tied to the brand," a Twitter spokesperson told Re/Code.
Twitter threatened to cut off its API access to the photo-sharing startup if it failed to drop the application to trademark the Twitpic name, which was originally filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2009.
Everett believes the trademark it uses rightfully belongs to Twitpic.
"We originally filed for our trademark in 2009, and our first use in commerce dates back to February 2008 when we launched," Everett wrote in the company's blog Thursday. "We encountered several hurdles and difficulties in getting our trademark approved even though our first use in commerce predated other applications, but we worked through each challenge and in fact had just recently finished the last one."
Before Twitpic goes dark, the company has promised to launch an exporting tool that will help users download photos and videos from the service. As for its regular users, Twitpic's space will be filled by many other alternatives that offer similar services. App Advice listed some of the most popular apps in the category, including Mobypicture, Yfrog, Img.ly, CloudApp, Droplr and Twitter's own image-sharing service.
