Adios, PicPlz
Mobile photo editing and sharing company, PicPlz has just notified all users via email that they will be closing their doors, effective July 3, 2012. This closing date gives users a full month to pull all of their photos from the site. The email sent to users was brief, and offered no explanation:
“Hi [picplz user],
picplz Shutting Down Permanently
On July 3, 2012, picplz will shut down permanently and all photos and data will be deleted.
Until then, you can log in and download your photos by clicking on the download link next to each photo in your photo feed.
Thank you for your support of picplz and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.
Thanks,
picplz”
When visitors go to the site, they are met with this greeting:
According to CrunchBase.com, bootstrapped picplz became a part of app development company, Mixed Media Labs who in turn spun out the app as its own entity which has created new products like App.net, a mobile platform. It remains unclear whether or not the company ill resurrect the app under another company name or as part of another app.
What this means for users
Only existing users can log in to the site, as it is no longer accepting registration of new users. Although a message regarding the closure appears when the mobile app is opened, the app continues to function and post images to picplz and are still shareable.
As far as we can tell, there is no mass download or export option for users, and because picplz is not integrated into third party tools like ifttt, it appears the only option is to download each individual picture by clicking “Download” next to each picture.
Many devices will still have the original photos, and possibly even the edited version, on their SD Card or in their photo galleries, but for those who have relied on hosting the images on picplz, all photos will be deleted when the company shuts down.
Because no reason has yet been cited for the shutting down of the service, it is possible that the team is simply focusing on the other apps being developed under the Mixed Media Labs brand, and resources to picplz have possibly been limited, but it is equally possible that Instagram, which has similar functions, is beginning to push out the smaller competitors.
Many of us at AG use picplz as our photo sharing app of choice, so this closure is not one that comes with fanfare.
