TwitPic
| TwitPic | |
| |
 TwitPic mainpage in 2011-01-12 | |
| URL | http://twitpic.com |
| Status | Special case (content to be possibly moved) |
| Archiving status | Saved by itself |
| Archiving type | Unknown |
| Project source | twitpic-discovery, twitpic-grab, twitpic-items, twitpic-cloudfront-grab twitpic-grab2 |
| Project tracker | twitpicdisco, twitpic, twitpic-cloudfront twitpic2 |
| IRC channel | #quitpic (on hackint) |
TwitPic is an image hosting service. The service is designed mainly for Twitter users - the images uploaded on the service are given short URLs for usage in Twitter posts. Twitter carries a 140-character post limit, the average Twitpic URL is 25/26 characters long.
On September 4, 2014 TwitPic announced they were shutting down on September 25. On September 18, 2014, TwitPic announced that they'd been acquired and would "live on". However, on October 16, 2014, Twitpic announced that "agreeable terms could not be met" and that the service would be shutting down on October 25th. On the shutdown date, it was made public that TwitPic would be taken by Twitter, thus the data would be kept, in read-only mode.
MOTHERFUCKER ! ! !
MOTHERFUCKER ! ! !
MOTHERFUCKER ! ! !
Site structure
Image page urls:
- http://twitpic.com/******
- http://twitpic.com/*****
- http://twitpic.com/****
- http://twitpic.com/***
- http://twitpic.com/**
- http://twitpic.com/*
where * = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z
where ****** consists of up to 6 alphanumeric characters. Leading zeros are irrelevant, e.g.: /000joe = /0joe = /joe. Like incremental numbers in base-36 numeral system.
- Original image URL: https://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/1165.jpg
- Video: https://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/video/238148666.mp4
- Post-shutdown URL: https://dn3pm25xmtlyu.cloudfront.net/photos/large/2.jpg?1202229769&Expires=1414338482&Signature=VngmKpZJc~f~JKTwC6Xi-8~TUDVVaElfqQ6Xn3mvBhS9gDEOlmx8xVCj~Vve35fx1n5jXrIhHPIm-lYBDkSjVjkIo-IZuxGRGplMOcqmexXjVROM7OPKbdhZ-2XaWgcgaieJDNHaB1LyxwGsbIVyg~JuadStL-jGw6Kby-lL5bY_&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIYVGSUJFNRFZBBTA
Archiving report
Phase 1: content discovery
From September 5 to 6, until ArchiveTeam got banned, ~41 million of the possible ~900 million urls were discovered. The discovery was suspended.
On September 6th, someone claiming to be Noah Everett showed up in #quitpic[1]:
[16:21:14] <n00b957> hey guys [16:21:16] <n00b957> Noah Everett here [16:21:26] <n00b957> noticed the site was really bogging down due to ArchiveTeam requersts [16:21:30] <n00b957> *requests [16:21:55] <n00b957> didn't know what it was at first so we blocked it to continue normal site operations and users can get their data easily [16:22:27] <n00b957> just wanted to give a heads up so you don't think we are trying to be malicious [16:23:00] <n00b957> we're working on getting our export tool out the door right now [16:23:14] <n00b957> I'd like to let our users get their data off the site via that first as quickly as possible
Unfortunately, he left #quitpic shortly afterwards and has not returned any of Archive Team's repeated inquiries about archiving Twitpic.
Phase 2: content grab
After some testing, actual content grab began on September 14.
On October 25, 2014, when Noah Everett announced that TwitPic would be saved by Twitter, ArchiveTeam decided to start a new, full, fresh grab of the site as it looked like before any changes caused by the new situation.
A brand new grab
Afterwards, ArchiveTeam got the images and image pages. Other data (tags, albums etc.) was also planned to be taken, but, in the end, wasn't done.[confirmation needed]
Archives
Archives are stored in WARC format available at archiveteam_twitpic.
Download Your Data
"You can export your data and photos at: http://twitpic.com/account/settings"
When it's about your content, don't rely on ArchiveTeam's archives, as they may be incomplete, and are not made in a way that a single user's content can be extracted from them. Use the export-tool!
Export Tool Bugs
Twitpic's export tool is buggy, handing out seemingly empty zip files[2] and 503 errors.[3] The empty zip file problem can sometimes be fixed:
The problem is twofold. If the problem is on a non-Windows computer, it is probably a corrupted download (which happens way too often). On Windows, the built in zip file handler is not able to reliably handle zip files. 7-zip seems to have the most success with the zip file but others have worked as well.
General process to follow:
- Download and install 7z
- Download the zip file and rename it something short.
- Open a command prompt.
- run the command 7z t zipfilename.zip
- If it tests successfully run 7z x zipfilename.zip
- Browse to the photo directory.
- Pictures should be visible and a text file with the metadata.
Downloaders
- Downloader by tag (it saves the full resolution image and metadata: uploader, date and description)
References
External links
- http://twitpic.com
- "Twit Pic. It's For Twitter Pictures, Of Course."
- "How A Spare Computer Became Twitpic, A $1.5+ Million A Year Twitter Success Story – with Noah Everett"
- "We're happy to announce we've been acquired and Twitpic will live on! ..."
- "Twitpic Couldn’t Find An Acquirer, Will Shut Down After All On Oct 25th"
- "Documentar y Archivar el Internet. Mesa 2 SIPAD": Comments on TwitPic at 1:15:17