The Race to Archive TwitPic ⇥ m.theglobeandmail.com

Pierre Chauvin, for the Globe and Mail:

Right now, a collective of Internet archivists and programmers is trying to do the impossible: save more than 800 million pictures uploaded to the Twitter photo-sharing service Twitpic before they disappear down the memory hole after the company’s scheduled shutdown on October 25.

For this group of digital librarians, saving a bunch of stranger’s pictures is about keeping alive a key piece of our digital culture.

TwitPic was huge for the first years of Twitter’s life, until the official image hosting service was launched. Its shutting down has been a botched affair; it deserves better. Another valuable contribution to history from the Archive Team.