Picnik Acquired by Google | Hacker News Reader

Picnik Acquired by Google

blog.picnik.com

91 pointsalexandros29 comments

Maybe the picnik acquisition has a purpose, possibly to ship it with chromeOS considering it is based on the cloud.

It's notable that Google is promoting HTML5 quite heavily but just acquired a product that is tied heavily to proprietary technology.

Edit: How feasible is it to build Picnik using HTML5 stuff (SVG, background image grinding, etc.)?

It's probably feasible given enough time. However, Adobe Flex/flash excels at graphics and image manipulation and provides a set of APIs that let you focus on developing features for this particular domain.

It would be more notable if they didn't diversify and bet the whole company on HTML 5.

They have a great opportunity to twist Microsoft's arm with HTML5. Chrome's the fastest browser out there now, and it will be the only option on some devices (ChromeOS/Android). Also, if the Firefox folks don't have the manpower/funding for a good HTML5 implementation, it will be no skin off Google's back to help them out. So, if MSFT doesn't come up with a good implementation in IE9/10/whatever, they risk being the odd man out ["For best results, use Firefox, Chrome, or another HTML5-compliant browser for this site."] Microsoft would have no choice but to completely concede the user experience to an abstraction layer built on top of its cash cow.

And, what chips has Google actually put on the table? One thing might be that they aren't putting out a set of Open Source but non-standard plugins for Chrome/Firefox/IE to replace Flash. Google is implicitly taking the risk that Adobe will implicitly own the web if more and more sites standardize on Flash-based stuff. Perhaps, since it's more likely that the world will rally around HTML5 than around Google's Flash competitor (or Silverlight), Google is actually adopting a least-risk strategy?

Also, for all we know, Google has a set of plugins waiting in the wings should HTML5 die on the vine. It was rumored that Microsoft had a version of Office for Linux ready to go should the desktop market tip so heavily out of its favor that it risked losing its Office semi-monopoly if it didn't support Linux.

Don't forget Chrome Frame.

To sit and chat with the gents who plan strategic acquisitions at Google would be a fun day. Great buyers market. Hope the exit was HUGE.

i still wonder why acquisition prices are so secretive

From the acquirer's side, I'd guess competitive reasons. The amount they were willing to pay sends a signal to their competition about how important that particular product is to them (and if they paid a lot, that message is often very loud and clear).

From the seller's side there's the issue of respect for the acquirer's preferences as well as the fact that broadcasting your payday is kinda like broadcasting your salary: It can create some awkward situations. Especially if you're trying to keep some non-owner employees around.

Flash and Flex based app, interesting acquisition. They are getting integrated into many online photo services and it is a very well done usable app for all skill levels. I also wonder if aviary.com is going to be acquired as they are just about as good and have many apps.

i wonder if yahoo will keep using picnik for flickr's integrated photo editor.

That's the first thing I thought too. I wonder the deal will be some clauses, if it includes something about exclusivity (to later become some sort of 'Google Docs Photo Editor') I guess Yahoo! will need to dump it or change for another like Aviary (which went free last week).

Why didn't Yahoo! bought it? I really would like to know

Edit:

4. Will I still be able to access other social networking and photo storage sites from Picnik, or access Picnik from those social networking and photo storage sites? Yes!

It seems so

Ugh. I groan every time pone more service I like gets herded into the horrible "attached to your Google Account" profile management hell. I wish Google would find a better way to integrate this stuff. Or just let them stand alone.

They did let it stand alone. And what's wrong with attaching it to a google account anyway?

Well for one thing, anonymity. If you are very free with your opinions on e.g. youtube, but use your real name with gmail it can be really annoying when a purchase fuses these two.

It's stand-alone now, but I'd bet that it's part of the plan to link it to google at some point. That's the way these things go.

What's the problem with signing in with Google Account? I would like to sign in to my Google Account and have access to all my web apps.

The problem is that Google Accounts get really, really complicated the moment you start using Google Apps for your domain (which plenty of us do). Here's a good explanation of some of the issues involved:

http://www.equalsdrummond.name/?p=267

I'd love to be able to "just sign in with my Google Account", but Google need to do a lot of work to clean up the mess before it's that simple.

I had the joy of doing one of the very first picnik integrations before their API was public. I got to work directly with Darrin and it was a joy all around. Super sharp and overwhelmingly nice guy.

And they're not summarily killing the product. What a pleasant surprise.

That is yet to be seen. But generally, Google mainly used to screw up the social applications, so this one should be ok. ;-) And, as it was mentioned, this one is probably needed for Chrome OS.

...and so Google entered Adobe's turf.

Picnik is built on Adobe Flex, so I'd say there was a bit of turf gained by both Google and Adobe

A small victory for Flex, a bigger problem for Photoshop.

How many people are buying (not pirating) Photoshop to make basic changes to their photos? Maybe Photoshop Elements (if it still exists), but other than that I don't think this would really damage the Creative Suite all that much as they're quite different markets.

All the people I know who might use a web-based image editor have either been struggling along with Paint or pirated Photoshop at some point.

adobe already has photoshop.com for web-based image editing, so i doubt picnik changing hands has any affect on them.

But how many people knew of it, or use photoshop.com? I had never heard of it until now. Adobe's doing a pretty piss-poor job of marketing it if it is supposed to be a stand-in free web-based version of photoshop for people to do basic touch-ups on their pictures ...

To be honest, I had no idea what Picnik was. Is it very popular?

I thought this happened two years ago? Or was that Picasa? Maybe there's someone in Google's M&A department that really likes companies with 6-letter names that start with P?

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