Twitter acquires Twitpic hours before planned shut down

Twitter has acquired photo sharing service Twitpic, just hours before its planned shut down. As a part of the deal Twitpic's archives will live on in read-only mode, owned by Twitter.

The acquisition was confirmed by Twitpic's owner and founder Noah Everett, in which he states that he is giving Twitter's domain name and photo archive, but Twitpic will be in read-only mode from now on. So users will be able to access photos on the service, but users won't be able to upload new content.

The company's Android and Apple apps have been removed from the app stores and the service will no longer accept new uploads. Everett wrote, "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."

Everett stated in a blog post "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." He added, "Twitter shares our goal of protecting our users and this data."

Last month, Twitpic had announced that the company is shutting down on 25th September. The service got into a trademark battle with Twitter and stated that it doesn't have the financial resources to fight Twitter in court. Twitter said it would revoke Twitpic's API key, if Twitpic didn't withdraw its trademark application, making the service useless.

Source: Twitpic