This past week SixApart announced that the SplashBlog mobile blogging site will close down in a month. I’ve been following SplashBlog and its use as a mobile blogging client:
- In February 2005, SplashBlog.com launched as a free hosting service for SpashData’s SplashBlog mobile client (initial price $20). When launched, the client could post to either the TypePad or SplashBlog services.
- In September of that year, they released client version 2.0 which was now free, but only connected to their own SplashBlog service. The service was free for up to 100 pictures and about $30/year for an unlimited account.
- In March 2006, SplashData sold the SplashBlog client and service to SixApart, presumably to enable mobile blogging to their services like TypePad.
- In August 2006, the SplashBlog client reappeared as TypePad Mobile
- A couple months later in October 2006, SixApart launched the Vox service and released a mobile version of the old SplashBlog client specifically targeted for Vox.
Today, SixApart continues to support both TypePad Mobile and Vox Mobile clients for Palm, Windows Mobile, and Symbian Series 60, so it seems like the old SplashBlog client will live on for a while longer.
As for the SplashBlog.com service shutdown, they are providing tools to either download all your original images in Zip format, or migrate them to a TypePad account. Migration to Vox is also possible, but not directly; instead, you can use the Zip export/import method.