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InsideGoogle
Thursday, December 23, 2004
 
Will Google Buy Community Photo Service?
There has been a bit of quiet rumbling lately that we'll see a Google aquisition of community photo service Flickr, or perhaps Fotki early next year. With Picasa 2.0 coming (source: USA Today), the word is Google wants the key to the new Picasa's success to be photo sharing, and Flickr/Fotki would be the key. There's a few reasons why this could happen:Adam Lasnik at BLADAM predicts Google will release Picasa 2 on February 15 (very specific... what does he know?), with the Flickr aquisition coming 45 days later. Picking uo Flickr, with fun attitude, small and smart team, open API, "not-evil" history, and considerably large user base (150,000 users and 1.8 million images, according to Fast Company) would be a great asset to Google, and repair the fact that none of its community products (Blogger, Groups, Orkut) work very well. This is an area Microsoft is making serious and successful moves in, and Google would do well to not cede this battle to Redmond. I would call it a very smart move.

Comments:
The first legitimate reference of Google possibly acquiring flickr was made on http://y.livejournal.com/1412.html.

Actually it was not really a prediction, but rather a 'logical conclusion'. I doubt this will actually materialise, however all the elements are there: small company that has innovated in 'organising and presenting information (pictures)' and has become very popular.

The article was written Oct 2004.
 
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