Google Picasa announced the first bad news on its official website since its release. Google will shut down the Google Picasa service by this May. The public has been concerning the development of Picasa since Google released Google Photos. Google Picasa and Google Photos have similarities, however, the machine learning and automatic classification of Google Photos are better than Picasa’s.
Anil Sabharwal who is in charge of Google Photos indicated on the blog that if the company focuses its vigor and resource on this application, it will be upgraded with better experience for users. Photo service means a lot to any internet companies, especially when the smartphone becomes the most popular camera. The users require advanced storage, management and photo sharing devices.
Google once announced the montly active users of Google Photos reached 100 million in last October, however, it seldom announced the statistics of Picasa. Judging by the number of its monthly active users, Google Photos could be considered as a successful application. It could replace the function of Picasa. Google Photos was made for the mobile devices while Picasa was made for the need of desktop internet.
Many of Google Photos users might not hear about Picasa. Picasa was a CPE that acquired by Google in 2004. Google enaged in promoting this application, but its launch got stuck since 2011.
To Google, it works better to focus on the core products if it simplifies its product line. But it might cause effect to Picasa users. Google will stop supporting Picasa from March 15 and then its developers won’t be able to use some of the Picasa API.
If the Picasa users stored the photos on its online albums, they just need to login Picasa and open the Google Photos service to transfer the photos. If they are unwilling to use the Google Photos, they could login Picasa and check their photos. But they are unable to create or edit the albums in the future.
