Picnic is closing!

[UkoBlackHat97]

I got this information from [email protected] and Picnik Blog

Date: Sunday, January 22, 2012 14:17

Title: "Picnik will be closed!"

The content of the emails is:

Official Announcement: All good things must end

All good things must end and so too with Picnik. Picnik will be closing on April 19, 2012.

Once the shock is over, we have important information for you. That's okay - no need to rush. We understand.

Since joining Google in 2010, we have been creating editing magic in Google products while continuing to keep Picnik awesome. But now we get to focus on even awesomer things.

Your photos liberated

Amazing photos are created in Picnik so we have launched a new feature, Picnik Takeout, that easily downloads your photos to your desktop in convenient zip files. You may also elect to copy your photos to

Google+ where you can store and share your creations. You may request your photos at any time and use this handy tool as many times as you like until our closing date of April 19, 2012. Learn More.

Premium Refunds

To our primo Picnik Premium members, we’ll begin processing a full refund of your current membership fee within a week of this announcement. By “full” we mean the whole darn thing. Yep, this means even if you are on your very last day of an annual membership, we will refund you the entire $24.95. Just because we want to say thanks.

Now the Good News – Free Premium for ALL!

To express our gratitude for your support over the past 5 years, Picnik Premium is free for everyone! Use Picnik in all of its premium glory, for free, from now until our actual closing day. Touch-up, Textures, Advanced, and more are all free for you to use!

We have been incredibly proud of building a product that is used and beloved by so many of you. We continue to be amazed and humbled by the photos you create and we are immensely grateful for all of your support, creativity, and passion.

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. We encourage you to visit Google+ and give it a whirl.

Please visit the Help Hub for more information on our wind down. Be our fans on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or see Picnik blog for updated information on our April closure..

It’s been awesome,

Team Picnik

[DKT27]

Picnik users blast Google over planned shutdown

A large number of users of the photo editing web site Picnik are blasting Google's decision to shut down the web site in mid-April, saying they don't want to use Google+ to access Picnik's features.

Over the past several months, Google has been shutting down a number of its businesses and products. On Friday, the company announced another round of shut downs. That included the popular online photo editing site Picnik, which Google acquired in 2010. In its blog post explaining the move, Google said, "We’re retiring the service on April 19, 2012 so the Picnik team can continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products."

That move is not making users of the Picnik site happy at all. The official Picnik blog post that also announced the shut down has been flooded with over 1,000 comments since Friday, most of which are taking Google to task for closing the web site. They are also against having to join the company's Google+ social networking service in order to use many of Picnik's features after the site's shut down.

One poster, "Yogi" states:

This is not good. I have been trying to use Google+ but is very clumsy, unwieldy, and just plain not usable. I think that this is just another effort by Google to make its users use a product that is not very good. I love Picnick (sic), I hate Google+. I am considering closing my Google+ account.

Another poster, "Susan" writes:

I do not and will not use Google +

I resent being forced to use a product I do not need and do not want, just to have access to a great piece of software like Picnik.

Google, you disappoint me more every day.

So far Google has yet to comment on the protests against Picnik's planned shutdown. As we reported Friday, all of the site's premium features are now free to use until the site closes on April 19. People who paid for the premium service will get a refund.

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