Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Picnik comes to Picasa Photo Albums

Perhaps one of the most visited posts to this blog in recent months this year was when I categorized Google's acquisition of online photo editor Picnik as "HUGE".

There were a lot of reasons, some of when can be found here.

Earlier today, Picnik was integrated into Google's Picasa Web Albums.  Users can now edit photos in the cloud (without opening Google's Picasa client software) and use a variety of cool effects, most of which are free.

Users can also sync those photos to Picasa easily whenever they wish.

While Picnik was used on Yahoo's Flickr prior to the Google acquisition ... and still is, the Picnik / Picasa integration is another step towards Google's Chrome OS Cloud computing platform while further monetizing Picnik.... as well as bringing recognition to Picasa for those that have yet to use it.

While it's not the only game in town, Picnik is accurate, fast, fun .... and just works.

With Music, Entertainment and other already popular Internet spaces now on Google's radar, it's become obvious that a 'complete' cloud-based platform is being laid out prior to the anticipated launch of a fast-loading Ubuntu-like Google Chrome based operating system later this year.

The official announcement can now be found on the Google Photo Blog here.