| Foundation | 2005 in Seattle, Washington |
|---|---|
| Dissolved | April 19, 2013 |
| Location | Seattle, Washington |
| Location country | United States |
| Key people | Jonathan Sposato, CEO Darrin Massena, CTO and Co-founder Mike Harrington, Co-founder |
| Industry | Internet, computer software |
| Parent | |
| Language | English, Spanish, German, Italian and 12 others |
| Current status | Fully closed[1] |
Picnik was an online photo editing service which was acquired by Google in 2010.[2] It was headquartered in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States.[3]
The site allowed users to edit images, add styles to imported images and use basic editing tools such as cropping and resizing an image.[4] Users could import photos natively from Facebook, Myspace, Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Yahoo Image search, Google+ and also offered options to upload from a computer or to upload from a website. Many of Picnik's basic photo editing tools were free to use. Picnik Premium included additional photo editing features and was offered for a monthly, 6-month, or annual subscription cost.[5]
Picnik had a partnership with Flickr that included a less feature-rich version of Picnik built into Flickr as a default photo editor. They had also signed up to do photo editing with free website creator Webs. Picnik was acquired by Google on March 1, 2010.[6][7]
In January 2012, Picnik announced that it would be closing on April 19, 2013 and would be moving their tools to Google+.[citation needed] They provided a full refund to all Premium members and also provided free Premium service to everyone until April 19. Some people petitioned to stop the shut down, but failed.[8] Picnik sent an email to all of their users on March 21, 2012 containing a list of frequently asked questions.[9]
Picnik stopped allowing downloads of saved content and fully shut down on April 19, 2013. Two of Picnik's original engineers left Google to start a similar photo editor called PicMonkey in the beginning of 2012.[10]
References
- ^ "Picnik closure notice". Google. Archived July 19, 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2012-08-30.
- ^ Caplan, Jeremy (2010-03-05). "Google's Acquisition Binge: Why It Bought Picnik". TIME. Archived May 5, 2025 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2025-04-11.
- ^ "About Us." Picnik. Retrieved on March 5, 2010. Archived February 23, 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Insanely easy photo editing with Picnik". Simple Scrapper. 2009-10-20. Retrieved 2025-04-11.
- ^ Kennedy, John (2010-03-02). "Google acquires photo-editing site Picnik - Life". Silicon Republic. Archived January 19, 2025 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2025-04-11.
- ^ Axe, Brian (2010-03-01). "Google welcomes Picnik". Google Blog. Archived September 27, 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2017-07-20.
- ^ "Google acquiring Web-based photo editor Picnik". CNET. Retrieved 2025-04-11.
- ^ "Don't Close Picnik!". SignOn.org. Archived from the original on 2012-10-29. Retrieved 2012-08-27.
- ^ "Picnik closure FAQ". Google Inc. Archived November 27, 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 30 August 2012.
- ^ Cook, John. "With Picnik set to shut down, former Picnik engineers scratch itch with PicMonkey" Archived August 6, 2017 at the Wayback Machine, GeekWire, Seattle, 16 April 2012.