[gorner]

Yeah, they really should have just looked at rebranding. A few Instagram-related services (e.g. Webstagram, Statigram) had to do so recently, IIRC, and I don't think they're significantly worse off.

Thing is, even if Twitter tacitly condoned it for years, the name "TwitPic" is pretty obviously derived from "Twitter" and is trading on their (Twitter Inc.'s) reputation. Even their logo is styled similarly to the old Twitter wordmark. The blog post didn't even say Twitter wanted to force them to stop using the name, only that they shouldn't attempt to register a confusingly-similar trademark (though granted, forcing a rebrand might well have been the next step).

[richrad]

Leo Laporte had "twit" first and gave Twitter permission to use it back in the beginning.

[cowsandmilk]

Leo Laporte likes to play up having "twit" in relation to twitter, but as far as trademarks, his claim would have been laughable. They aren't in the same business.

[danellis]

He should buy TwitPic and mix things up a bit.