Of the myriad photo-centric apps out there, Storehouse was a bit special, rather than being a repository and a place to share photos in the normal fashion, it focused on letting users tell stories with their pictures. Users could create a story or a space, where they would post photos that followed a theme, allowing viewers to get a pretty good idea of the story behind the photos. In direct competition with big names like Snapchat and Instagram, however, the app didn’t perform quite up to par and thus, on July 15, it will be shut down for good, and the website behind it will be shuttered.
Users were sent an email notifying them of the impending closure, with a few words from Storehouse CEO Mark Kawano. In the message, Kawano said that he was proud of what the app had accomplished and how far the service had come, but that growth and user count simply weren’t up to an acceptable level that would justify the kind of cost associated with continuing to operate the service. The service had undergone a transformation back in September in an attempt to find its place in the crowded market, axing most of the social features that users knew other platforms for in favor of its unique features, but the change ultimately didn’t do much in the way of attracting new users.
The service will be shuttered for good on July 15, at which point the website will go dark and the app will cease to function. At that time, it will, of course, also be pulled from the Play Store. For all intents and purposes, the service has already been shuttered; signups for new users are no longer being accepted, and current users can no longer create content, only able to view what has already been posted and share it to other places. As a courtesy, the service will remain active in its current passive state until July 14 to give users a chance to download their photos and stories in order to avoid having them lost forever when the service goes completely dark on the 15th. Customer support is still available via email, but will be fairly limited in these last days for the service.