Twitpic

Screenshot of Twitpic in November 2009
URL	http://www.twitpic.com
Slogan	Share photos on Twitter
Type of site	Image sharing
Registration	Required
Available language(s)	English
Owner	Noah Everett
Created by	Noah Everett
Launched	Early 2008[1]
Alexa rank	174[2]
Current status	Online

Twitpic is a website that allows users to easily post pictures to the Twitter microblogging and social media service.^[3] Twitpic is often used by citizen journalists to upload and distribute pictures in near real-time as an event is taking place.^[4][5]

[edit] History

Twitpic was launched in 2008 by Noah Everett.^[1]

[edit] Description

Twitpic could be used independently of Twitter, in a way similar to Flickr. However several characteristics make this site a companion for Twitter. Twitpic usernames and passwords are the same as the ones in Twitter. Comments to photographs are sent as a reply tweet. Twitpic URLs are already short, making it unnecessary to use URL shortening. Anyone with a Twitter account can post pictures to the site. This has the disadvantage of anyone being able to post pornographic, obscene or objectionable material. Although the site administrator attempts to keep the site family friendly by removing such pictures, the sheer number of uses makes this very difficult.^{[original research?]} The site administrator has promised to implement a "report this photo" button but this has yet to be implemented.

[edit] Related applications

Tweetdeck, Echofon, Tweetie, Twitfile and Twitterrific are iPhone applications that can upload photos from iPhones to Twitpic.^[6][7] ÜberTwitter and OpenBeak are BlackBerry apps that also have the capability of uploading images to Twitpic. WebOS phones may upload images to Twitpic using the Tweed application. Android phones can upload pictures to Twitpic with the Twidroid application.

[edit] In media

In January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 experienced multiple bird strikes and had to be ditched in the Hudson River after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. A passenger on one of the ferries that rushed to help, took a picture of the downed plane as passengers were still evacuating and tweeted it via Twitpic before traditional media arrived at the scene.^[8][9] The Twitpic service crashed as thousands of people tried to access the photo at the same time.^[10] Twitpic also crashed on 1 April 2009 as a result of the huge number of photos (and people visiting these photos) being posted from the G20 protests in London.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official website

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