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Google Acquires Online Image Editing Tool Picnik 84

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the google-shopping-spree dept.
Many different sources are writing to tell us about Google's acquisition of online image editing tool Picnik. "And all this leads us to today’s exciting news: we’ve just been acquired by Google! What does this mean for Picnik? It means we can think BIG. Google processes petabytes of data every day, and with their worldwide infrastructure and world-class team, it is truly the best home we could have found. Under the Google roof we’ll reach more people than ever before, impacting more lives and making more photos more awesome. What does this mean for you Picnikers? Nothing is changing right away, but Picnik now has more potential than ever before. The team that built Picnik from the grass up will continue making advanced and powerful photo-editing easier, more intuitive and more fun, so stay tuned to hear about all the cool new stuff we’re working on."
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Google Acquires Online Image Editing Tool Picnik More

Google Acquires Online Image Editing Tool Picnik

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  • Awwww! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MattGWU ( 86623 ) on Monday March 01, 2010 @06:23PM (#31323996)

    "And all this leads us to today's exciting news: we've just been acquired by Google! What does this mean for Picnik? It means we can think BIG. Google processes petabytes of data every day, and with their worldwide infrastructure and world-class team, it is truly the best home we could have found. Under the Google roof we'll reach more people than ever before, impacting more lives and making more photos more awesome. What does this mean for you Picnikers? Nothing is changing right away, but Picnik now has more potential than ever before. The team that built Picnik from the grass up will continue making advanced and powerful photo-editing easier, more intuitive and more fun, so stay tuned to hear about all the cool new stuff we're working on."

    That's so cute!

  • I am Sergey Brin of Borg. (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrEricSir ( 398214 ) on Monday March 01, 2010 @06:28PM (#31324044) Homepage

    You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

    And here's an advertisement for something related to the picture of Britney Spears you're photoshopping.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) *

      You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

      Resisting? Who's resisting? You had me at "I'm Sergey Brin"...

    • The google borg cubes (gborg gcubes?) will have dynamic google ads up and down their sides showing ads relevant to whatever race they're assimilating.

  • Jeepers! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Monday March 01, 2010 @06:29PM (#31324058)

    ...making more photos more awesome.

    Nice to see that 13 year olds can get work in this economy.

  • Premium features to be free? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cytoman ( 792326 ) on Monday March 01, 2010 @06:31PM (#31324086)
    That's what I'm interested in finding out but there is no mention anywhere about it - will the premium features (paid version) of Picnik be free from now on? Or will Google continue the practice of charging for premium features?

    Personally, I hope they make it all free. I'm cheap, in case you had any doubt.

    • Re:Premium features to be free? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) on Monday March 01, 2010 @06:48PM (#31324294)

      I have been using Picnick for years with my Flickr account (because it's easier than me doing it in Photoshop myself--as I only have one copy of that on one computer) and only recently have I run into wanting to use something other than what they have for free.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zerth ( 26112 )

      Depends on the pricing and if they can cover the cost with advertising. Google still charges for Sketchup Pro after they got bought, for example, but it isn't exactly conducive to advertising and is used by design firms, etc who can't afford or don't need larger CAD/animation packages

      Picnik Premium seems to cost a couple of bucks a month and is aimed at casual users. Its main costs are bandwidth and storage, which Google can supply in abundance. I imagine advertising could cover whatever else that couple

    • Google has a history of releasing paid stuff for free. Keyhole was originally extremely expensive, and they released Google Earth free. They still charge something like $30 for the next version up, but that's a lot less than the several hundred+ it was originally.

  • What does it mean?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by goofyspouse ( 817551 ) on Monday March 01, 2010 @06:33PM (#31324110)
    "What does this mean for Picnik?"

    Seriously? It means you are frickin' rich now.

  • Photo Editor, not Image Editor (Score:4, Informative)

    by javakah ( 932230 ) on Monday March 01, 2010 @06:36PM (#31324154)
    It's a photo editor, not an image editor. If you want an image editor, you might try Splashup http://www.splashup.com/ [splashup.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by treeves ( 963993 )

      "Splashup, formerly Fauxto, is a powerful editing tool and photo manager."

      I was thinking it was sort of a stupid name, but it's not quite as stupid as it used to be!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Haymaker ( 1664103 )
      Great, you HAD to mention Splashup. Now Google is going to buy them too. Way to go.

    • or http://www.aviary.com/ [aviary.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by prichardson ( 603676 )

      What's the difference between a photo editor and an image editor?

      Thanks

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by WWWWolf ( 2428 )

        What's the difference between a photo editor and an image editor?

        Image editor [gimp.org] is an application designed for manipulation of 2D bitmap raster image data, usually using a set of very complex, powerful and effective functions such as drawing tools, filters, layering and channel operations.

        Photo editor [f-spot.org] is a piece of shit sold to gullible customers, "allowing" them to "manage" and "archive" all of their "digital photos" and sometimes even perform a limited set of "operations" on them, making the whole process "fun".

        So, the only real difference is the feature set, the prima

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by kriston ( 7886 )

        Look in the mirror. If you're wearing a beret and a soul patch, it's an image editor. If you're wearing a backwards baseball cap and a goatee, it's a photo editor.

  • Picnik is a pretty neat tool. I mean... I'm cool with paint.net so my needs are simple anyway, but it's also nice to have a web-based tool available anywhere. I just hope they don't eventually pull out of flickr and go exclusively with Picasa now. ...seems to me at one point google supported Firefox. I know this isn't the same, but it also would not surprise me to see picnik removed from flickr eventually.

  • Am I alone? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MillionthMonkey ( 240664 )
    Is anyone else getting sick of hearing exciting stories about Google?
  • Google will now be processing petabytes of poor image composition techniques every day.
  • n/t
  • 1) Copy some desktop app but make it "online"
    2) Get bought by Google!
    3) Profit!

  • they where intent on billing people for effects that essentially you could do in imagemagick

    but what mattered was the ability to do things in a flash platform
    wake up yahoo and build something nice... add to flickr
    what people really liked was the sprinkling of dew... have a sense of humor and it gets you a lot

    there are lots of online photoshop tools but the easyest way to tell if they are serious is to find if they have a image clone tool...

    odd but true

    they where insistent on billing people I will be interes

  • Good Luck, Picnikers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gyrogeerloose ( 849181 ) on Monday March 01, 2010 @07:00PM (#31324404) Journal

    What does this mean for you Picnikers? Nothing is changing right away...

    Which, of course, translates to "You'll continue to have a job at least until all the financial details of the sale are arranged. After that, who knows?" I'm speaking from experience here. I've had my employer "acquired" a couple of times and always ended up unemployed afterwards.

    • Depending on how early these pickickers joined, they might walk out with a nice roll of dough in their pockets, which I wouldn't mind.

    • "Picnikers" = users (Score:5, Informative)

      by Gorimek ( 61128 ) on Monday March 01, 2010 @09:13PM (#31325500) Homepage

      Dude, the statement talks about how it will affect the users.

      Some of them will surely become unemployed, but that is unrelated to this deal.

      • Dude, the statement talks about how it will affect the users.

        Some of them will surely become unemployed, but that is unrelated to this deal.

        I interpreted it as meaning employees, but you may very well be right.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Caetel ( 1057316 )
        In which case the answer should be Google will close down the current service offering shortly and months down the line offer a similar service under the Google banner.
    • The last time my company was acquired (the only time, actually) I got $10k up front, a new hiring-bonus, and a big fat bundle of retention bonuses. Yes: in 2008, even.

      Then they closed the San Mateo office and moved us down to Sunnyvale. That still kind of stinks. :(

      Your mileage may vary.

      • Nice. I hope all the Picnikers do as well.

        Grew up in San Mateo, BTW. On the wrong side of 101, though.

      • Picnik employees now commute to downtown Seattle [google.com] -- easily accessible on buses, trains, and ferries from much of four counties.

        They will be moving to Google's offices in Fremont [google.com] (North Seattle).

        I'm guessing many of them who did not drive to work will soon have to do so. Here comes more traffic!

    • Which, of course, translates to "You'll continue to have a job at least until all the financial details of the sale are arranged.

      Which could also translate to, "Layoffs were averted by our acquisition by a deep-pocketed major player."

      Seth

  • The Plan (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by doomy ( 7461 )

    1. Do No Evil.

    2. ??

    3. World Domination.

  • Eating Yahoo's lunch (Score:3, Interesting)

    by l00sr ( 266426 ) on Monday March 01, 2010 @07:21PM (#31324644)

    Picnik is highly integrated with flickr, which is owned by Yahoo. Google's own Picasaweb has never quite taken off the same way... I'd say they're jealous.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by drago ( 1334 )

      I'd rather say they're going to take Picnik out of business just to step on Yahoos foot while ramping up the advertising for picasaweb at the same time ;-)

  • This application is basically on online version of the Picasa editing tools. I find it hard to believe that Google would not already be working on adding those tools to Picasaweb. Will this really help them to do that any faster? Or does this just clear the way for the launch of those tools, while also providing an initial user base?

    • They've done this a dozen times or more. It's easier to buy an existing product (and the developers) than to get their own shit together.
  • I'm kind of invested in Flickr for online photo organization and storage, and haven't yet tried Picasa. Flickr uses Picnik for photo editing but Flickr is owned by yahoo. Anyone think Flickr will dump Picnik or photo editing all together now that a competitor owns it ?

  • Flash (Score:2)

    by jj00 ( 599158 )
    Doesn't that site use Flash? So does this mean that Google is all well and good with Adobe?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      Google does good stuff with flash.

      Analytics uses flash and not SVG for its charts (if memory serves correctly).

      Also the google PDF viewer is the most pleasant use of flash ever. And considering the flash plugin is lighter and less heavy than the acrobat plugin, a great way to reduce annoying adobeness in ones browser.

  • My personal domain is picknit.com. (I'm a tech writer. What do tech writers do?) All I needed was for somebody to enter "picknit" instead of "picnik" and I'd be in acquisition nirvana.

    I just can't catch a break.

  • Uh oh... (Score:4, Funny)

    by The Wild Norseman ( 1404891 ) <tw.norseman@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @12:32AM (#31326756)
    "And all this leads us to today's exciting news: we've just been acquired by Google! WHat doEs this mean for Picnik? It means we can think BIG. GoogLe Processes petabytes of data every day, and with their worldwide infrastructure and world-class teaM, it is truly the bEst home we could have found. Under the Google roof we'll reach more people than ever before, impacting more lives and making more photos more awesome. What does THis mEan for You Picnikers? Nothing is changing right away, but Picnik now HAs more potential than eVEr before. The team that buiLt Picnik frOm The graSs up will continue making advanced and pOwerFul photo-editinG easier, more intUitive and more funN, So stay tuned to hear about all the cool new stuff we're working on."

  • I'm not necessarily for rampant acquisition by a single company, but I have to admit that I only discover a lot of great services by the announcement that they've been purchased by Google.

  • Looks like Google wants to rejuvenate an ageing Picasa by rolling Picnik's feature set into it or giving Picasa a complete makeover all together with Picnik's help. It'd be cool to see Picnik's features in the Picasa stand-alone app, would give Photoshop a run for its money for sure.

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