PicPlz, a competitor to photo-sharing service Instagram, has told users it will be shutting down its service at the beginning of next month and deleting all images off its servers. Users can download their images before 3 July.
In a post on its website, PicPlz says a decision has been taken “to move on to other projects” and that the company has “made the tough decision to shut [PicPlz] down”.
Developed by Mixed Media Labs, PicPlz had an early advantage over Instagram as it was available on both Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS while Instagram was only available for the latter platform until recently. PicPlz also began offering analytics functionality in February, along with the ability to append Creative Commons licences to images.
Despite offering a similar service to Instagram — by allowing users to add filters and borders to images snapped with a mobile phone — PicPlz failed to gain the critical momentum that saw Instagram snapped up by social media giant Facebook in April for US$1bn in cash and stock. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media