{"id":376455,"date":"2010-03-01T16:37:56","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T21:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xconomy.com\/?p=65917"},"modified":"2010-03-01T16:37:56","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T21:37:56","slug":"google-buys-picnik-developing-its-strength-in-photo-editing-and-storage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/376455","title":{"rendered":"Google Buys Picnik, Developing Its Strength in Photo Editing and Storage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
deals<\/a>, acquisitions<\/a>, Internet<\/a><\/div>\n

\t\t\"Picnik\"<\/a>
\n\t\tGregory T. Huang wrote:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, this is no big surprise. Seattle-based Picnik<\/a> was on everybody\u2019s list as a local tech company with great potential to be acquired. The photo-editing startup announced today<\/a> it has been bought by Google. Terms of the deal weren\u2019t given, but this is big news for a startup community that hasn\u2019t seen a major tech exit in some time. One question is how many other suitors were trying to acquire Picnik.<\/p>\n

A blog on the company\u2019s site says, \u201cWhat 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\u2019ll reach more people than ever before, impacting more lives and making more photos more awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, we reported that Picnik had surpassed the 1-billion-photos-edited mark and was ahead of Flickr\u2019s growth curve<\/a> before the latter merged with Yahoo Photos. It will be interesting to see how Picnik\u2019s subsequent growth compares to Flickr now that it will be integrated with Google<\/a>. An interesting point here is that the integration between Picnik and Flickr, which was crucial to Picnik\u2019s growth, is certainly threatened by the Google acquisition—since Flickr is the archrival of Google\u2019s Picasa photo service.<\/p>\n

Picnik CEO Jonathan Sposato has previous connections to Google. The Mountain View, CA, search giant bought Sposato\u2019s previous startup, Phatbits, in 2005 (the software became Google Gadgets). Sposato stayed on and worked from Google\u2019s offices in Kirkland, WA, for just under a year before leaving to join Picnik, which had been started by Sposato\u2019s friends Mike Harrington and Darrin Massena in late 2005. It’s clear that Google keeps a close eye on its alums’ companies.<\/p>\n

One thing that makes Picnik stand out is that it was bootstrapped and never took outside funding—venture capital or otherwise. The company has been cash-flow positive since November 2008. Last spring, Sposato told me<\/a>, \u201cWhat is the point of having your own startup if you have to work for The Man again?\u201d (It\u2019ll be interesting to hear his thoughts on joining Google once again.)<\/p>\n

And something else Sposato told me last year has added significance now. “Our mission statement is to make \u2018Picnik\u2019 an Internet verb,” Sposato said. “Think of it as the Google of photos.”<\/p>\n

The company will be moving, but not very far from its Belltown office. Picnik says its team, which currently numbers 20 employees, will continue working on Picnik from Google\u2019s Seattle offices (presumably in Fremont, just a few miles away), and that \u201cnothing is changing right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

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deals, acquisitions, Internet Gregory T. Huang wrote: Well, this is no big surprise. Seattle-based Picnik was on everybody\u2019s list as a local tech company with great potential to be acquired. The photo-editing startup announced today it has been bought by Google. Terms of the deal weren\u2019t given, but this is big news for a startup […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1747,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","category-news","category-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1747"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}