Sharing Photos Gets Hotter
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Sharing photos is getting hotter on social networks.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) on Monday, 17th September, announced that it bought the company behind photo-sharing application Snapseed in a move evidently aimed at countering Facebook's acquisition of Instagram.
Financial terms of the deal for Nik Software were not disclosed.
"We want to help our users create photos they absolutely love, and in our experience Nik does this better than anyone," Google vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra said in a post at the Internet titan's social network.
Google+ social network passed the 400-million member mark this week, with 100 million people using the service each month, according to Gundotra.
Google launched its social network a year ago in a direct challenge to Facebook.
"For nearly 17 years, we've been guided by our motto, 'photography first,' as we worked to build world class digital image editing tools," Germany-based Nik said in a blog post.
"We've always aspired to share our passion for photography with everyone, and with Google's support we hope to be able to help many millions more people create awesome pictures."
Nik’s photo editing and sharing products include Snapseed software for smartphones, tablets or desktop computers.
The big ticket purchase was seen by some as a move by Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) to strengthen defenses against Google and blazing hot newcomer Pinterest just ahead of the Facebook public offering.
Early this month, Facebook completed its billion-dollar acquisition of popular smartphone photo-sharing service Instagram. Facebook announced plans to buy Instagram in a cash and stock deal for $1 billion in April. Under the terms of the deal, Facebook will acquire Instagram for $300 million in cash and roughly 23 million shares of Facebook common stock. Though the share price of Facebook remains at a steady low, the company promised not to sell stock to cover a nearly $2 billion tax bill and said it will allow employees to cash in their stock weeks ahead of schedule, moving to soothe nervous investors and its own staff.
As for the social networking competition between Facebook and Google, the search giant first rolled out some photo-friendly features, such as displaying pictures in a lightbox and allowing users to upload photos with large pixels.
But the photo community on Google+ and Snapseed does not have the popularity of Facebook or Instagram. According to Facebook, it is the largest photo-sharing site online with over 250 million photos uploaded each day and Instagram now has more than 100 million users.
Snapseed won Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) "iPad App Of The Year" award in 2011 for its multitouch photo editing interface.
Apple’s own iPhoto, released with every Mac personal computer as part of the iLife suite of digital media management applications, is now being made available in the recently released iPhone 5. The new A6 chip was designed by Apple to maximize performance and power efficiency to support the new features in iPhone 5, including the new 4-inch Retina display—all while delivering even better battery life. The new camera is completely redesigned with an optical performance, it’s 25%smaller than the camera in iPhone 4S.
At the current trading session, Apple Inc. shares gained -0.41% to $699.20 while The Stock traded within the range of $693.62 – $699.82. In the past year, the stock has traded within a range of $354.24 – $703.99. The current session’s volume of 9.77 million shares is down from the average daily trading volume of 14.34 million shares.
AAPL current year earnings per share experienced an addition with 82.63% while its current quarter performance remained +20.38%. Company’s beta coefficient included 1.21. Beta factors measures the amount of market risk associated with market trade. AAPL generated revenue of 148.81 billion in the following twelve months and earned $40.13 billion. The Company showed a positive 26.97% in the net profit margin and as well as in its operating margin which remained 35.62%. Company’s annual sales growth for the past five years was +41.16%.
Google continues to pick up smaller companies with specialized technology to boost its different offerings. Just last month, the company acquired marketing start-up Wildfire that provides software to help businesses place ads on social-media sites, strengthening its foothold in the world of social media. In June, the company bought Meebo for about $100 million that makes mobile applications for consumers as well as publishers, designed to enable online communication.
Google has done very well in the second quarter, with its gross revenue touching a record $12.21 billion. Revenues from both Google-owned and partner sites continued to grow double digits on a year-over-year basis. If Google’s investment pays off, its top shareholders should reap benefits.
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SomnathGuha has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, Facebook, and Google and has the following options: long JAN 2014 $20.00 calls on Facebook. Motley Fool newsletter services recommend Apple, Facebook, and Google. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.If you have questions about this post or the Fool’s blog network, click here for information.
