Google's campaign to drive up usage of its growing social networking
service could be the reason for the demise of Picnik, a fun and powerful
photo editing website that will be closing shop on April 19.
Google bought Picnik
in March 2011, saying at the time it was impressed with the product and
was looking forward to collaborating closely with the website's team to
improve the online photo editing experience on the Internet.
"We're excited to welcome them to Google," Google Product Management Director Brian Axe wrote in a company blog.
But that was then, this is now, as Google's social network, Google+,
is continuing to grow and is seeking to siphon away more users from much
larger Facebook.
In an email to Picnik users, the website's team tried to soft-sell
its creation's demise and boost the merits of its masters' new darling
Google+.
"We are excited by the photo-editing fun we have already brought to
Google products, like Google+, where you can find many of your favorite
Picnik effects in Creative Kit," the team wrote.
While you may find some of Picnik's effects in Creative Kit, you
won't find the attractive, intuitve and enjoyable-to-use interface of
Picnik's native site. What you will find in Creative Kit is the kind of
annoying minimalist interface and graphic mediocrity that's found
throughout Google+.
Picnik users will be much better served moving their traffic to other image editing sites such as Pixlr, Splashup or Pixenate.
Picnik is offered in two flavors: a paid and premium service. All
premium members will be receiving a full refund of their annual fee of
$24.95. "[E]ven if you are on your very last day of an annual
membership, we will refund you the entire $24.95," the team wrote. "Just
because we want to say thanks."
Along with Picnik, Google also lowered the boom on Google Message Continuity, Google Sky Map, Needlebase, Social Graph API and Urchin.
The Internet search leader with aspirations to be a bigger social
networking destination also announced this week that from now on, anyone
who opens a Gmail account must also join Google+, a nice way to pad Google+'s numbers and make it look better compared to rival Facebook.
Picnik has been a great product, and it would have been nice if
Google had treated Picnik with the same kind of respect and appreciation
Picnik has extended to its followers.