PicPlz, one of the popular photo sharing app that is direct competitor with Instagram, has announced that on 3 July, 2012 the service will close down permanently. The close down message is posted on PicPlz.com. Analysts explain the move as an the impact of the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook for $1 billion two months ago.

PicPlz has posted the following shut down notice for its users.

“On July 3, 2012, picplz will shut down permanently and all photos and data will be deleted. We have provided download links for existing users to save their photos. Thank you for your support of picplz and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Dalton Caldwell, member of the board of directors at PicPlz, said, “As a board member I have been supportive of the strategic decisions they have been making.”

In terms of this specific move, as has been stated before, the team that is operating picplz has been bootstrapping (ie not raising money). As part of this bootstapping effort, they recently launched a a paid iPad app for Pinterest users called pinflip: https://app.net/pinflip

pinflip has been doing very well and is currently the #5 paid iPad app in social networking in the US.”

Source: Techcrunch