Fotopic.net was a photo sharing website and web services suite operating between 2001 and 2011.
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On 2 August 1999, the website named photos.jml.net began as a private collection of photographs of a British couple, Joel and Nicky Rowbottom, and by February 2001, the system was transferred to fotopic.net and made available to the public. It was a particularly popular amongst early adopters of photo sharing technology, featuring in press coverage of this trend,[1] and popular throughout the transport enthusiast community, particularly with those involved with railway restoration projects.
In May 2008, Fotopic.net was acquired by Snappy Designs Ltd, a group of private investment individuals in partnership with ANY-Web Group.[2]
Around 8 March 2011, the servers were taken offline. It was subsequently announced on 31 March 2011, that Snappy Designs Ltd had been placed into administration, leaving the future of the site contents uncertain.[3]
On the 19th of April 2011 the home page for Fotopic.net went live again with a message informing users that 'Fotopic and its parent company Snappy Designs Ltd are no longer trading'. It also informed users that all images uploaded onto Fotopic servers were safe and that their aim was to migrate photos to a new service 'with similar or better functionality than Fotopic and a method for users to export their existing images'. [4]
Fotopic.net offered a free account or premium services that added various features. The free account consisted of disk space (250 megabytes) for photos that could be uploaded through the web browser, ftp or email. Free accounts became dormant if the user did not log-in every six months. Account holders could create albums that were viewable by unregistered users.