Cir.ca are reporting that TwitPic is shutting down:
Twitpic will shut down Sept. 25 after the company was unable to resolve a trademark dispute with Twitter, it said Sept. 4. The company claimed Twitter wanted it to abandon its trademark to the term "twitpic" or it would revoke the company's API access.
In a post on their blog TwitPic say:
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.
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TwitPic Shutting Down after Legal Threat from Twitter
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(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday September 05 2014, @10:08AM
I prefer the old days when 'ethically questionable' behaviour was met by much larger scale protests and boycotts.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday September 06 2014, @01:10AM
I had heard of TwitPic but that's it, no personal familiarity. So I checked it out on Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwitPic [wikipedia.org] ) and learned that:
1) It was launched in early 2008.
2) While it can be used like Flickr, it was designed mostly to let people tweet pictures (and from other comments here, before Twitter had that functionality), in other words, it was not an independent type of website.
3) January 2010, owner is offered an 8 figure sum for TwitPic. Rejects it.
4) Sept. through Oct. 2010: Twitter added the ability to post photos ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter [wikipedia.org] )
5) May 2011, TwitPic institutes shady changes about usage rights to photos:
So ultimately, we're talking about a parasitic website (I don't mean that pejoratively, just that without the host website, the sub-website dies, and of course the host can, as here, just deny API access -- TwitPic was basically totally dependent on Twitter). The owner of this wholly dependent website turned down an offer to be bought out. It's a good bet that Twitter made the offer, and when rebuffed, went into direct competition with the parasite website. Revenue drops at TwitPic, and then they decide to start selling user content in a shady manner (if you won't ID your affiliates, that's shady) to make up for it.
However cool it once was, today you have some shady operation totally dependent on Twitter with an overinflated sense of its own worth and an apparently cavalier attitude toward its users. I'm really not all that worked up over TwitPic's demise. I bet its owner sure wish he took that 8 figure offer in 2010 -- did he really think Twitter was incapable of cobbling together a photo system? And ultimately, all Twitter wants is this separate company to change its name from one that could easily confuse people that it is part of Twitter. Twitter has been pretty decent about fighting the NSA and so forth in court, would TwitPic do the same? If TwitPic was a pipeline to the NSA, don't you think that taint would rub off on Twitter? Lots of twitter users are barely able to understand technology.
I just can't feel the outrage here.
(Score: 2) by present_arms on Friday September 05 2014, @10:13AM
These kind of things are complete bollox, although I haven't heard of Twitpic before I would have re-branded personally and fuck twitter off. It really does seem that the US is run by lawyers.
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday September 06 2014, @01:20AM
From TFA:
Twitter isn't asking them to shutdown. It isn't even asking them to change their name.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Friday September 05 2014, @10:14AM
Disclaimer: I've never heard of this twitpic before, but couldn't they just change the name of the service and keep it going?
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Friday September 05 2014, @10:22AM
According to cir.ca, they didn't even have to change their name, just abandon the trademark filing.
(Score: 2) by romlok on Friday September 05 2014, @10:30AM
If this was just the trademark at issue, wouldn't the USPTO be the correct place for Twitter to make its argument in opposition of the trademark being issued, rather than bullying/blackmailing the other company into submission?
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Friday September 05 2014, @02:23PM
Whoa whoa whoa...*which* patent office are you talking about? There's one that actually considers arguments?
*stamp* *stamp* *stamp* *stamp*
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday September 05 2014, @05:36PM
I think I finally figured out what the problem with the Patent Office is!
All these problems over a simple misunderstanding!
They've just been using definition #14 by accident. [reference.com]
patent [pat-nt or for 10, 12–15, peyt-; especially British peyt-nt] noun:
14.
open, as a doorway or a passage.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday September 05 2014, @03:02PM
It does seem to be quite heavy handed, just not quite going nuclear.
(Score: 1) by Derp on Friday September 05 2014, @10:23AM
Maybe they just wanted to be bought out all along?
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday September 05 2014, @12:18PM
I find it worrying that people haven't heard of TwitPic. One of the first pictures from Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger landing US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009 came via TwitPic [wikipedia.org].
Anyhow, TwitPic uses Twitter's OAuth to associate hosted images and TwitPic done this before Twitter was able to host images. TwitPic aided Twitter's success before Twitter made themselves into a direct competitor to TwitPic.
1702845791×2
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @04:53PM
I find it worrying that people haven't heard of TwitPic.
Of all the things to be worried about even in this story, whether other people know the name of a company is decidedly low on my list.
As Jay-Z would say: "I got 99 problems, but other people not recognising the name of some internet company ain't one."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @10:16AM
Is their service based, as the name implies, on pictures of twits?
One can only look at David Ca-moron, Barfsack Obamalama, and John Boner so much.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday September 05 2014, @11:24AM
Cameron definitely qualifies, but I'm not sure the others you list fall into the "twit" category: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSqkdcT25ss [youtube.com]