Do you like pictures? Pretty pictures?
Google just purchased an online graphics startup called ‘Snapseed‘, adding the outstanding features of it’s tools to Google’s already growing list of image editing options.
While we like to get people’s attention, this news does not require Snapseed to suddenly be elevated to the status of ‘Instagram rival‘ just for the sake of writing an article.
In fact Snapseed was popular with photographers, not just ‘people taking pictures of their cats’; Something which already declassifies it from comparison to Instagram; Above and beyond the fact that photographers actually paid for Snapseed’s services.
In fact I don’t even need to pretend that:
‘Google and Facebook Inc are locked in a battle for social network followers‘
..to bolster this article either, but thanks for your attempt at ‘journalism’ Reuters.
The truth is that G+ isn’t for the MySpace holdouts, nor has it been designed to force people off of FB.
Heck I’m sure there’s users of both systems who will never make the switch and I’m just as sure that the developers working on G+ are fine with that.
You heard it here folks:
- Google+ is not Facebook.
- Does Facebook allow me to video chat with my GMail contacts?
- Can anyone guarantee efforts on Facebook will always be favored by Google?
- Do FB business pages give me the same professional exposure that a company page on G+ would provide?
- Would it be worth it to setup rel=author links for employees FB profiles when G+ is far more business worthy?
- Etc.. etc..
People keep saying things like, “Google is playing catch up in social…“, which is true if you completely ignore the innovations and ways that they are leading social tech.
Google already has some great graphics options like SketchUp:
.. and SVG Edit which is great for HTML5 authoring:
.. and Picasa for photos:
(Which in version 3.9 has a lot of image filters already!)
Heck, speaking of Picasa and Google+, with Picasa installed locally I can organize/edit photos on my desktop and have that organization flow seamlessly to email contacts/friends/public.
With multiple PCs at my disposal, having my efforts tied to a single online sharing point is ‘huge’ to say the least.
In fact, some tools, like SVG Edit, are directly available online, making it a very accessible tool for quick web design work on-the-fly.
If Nik Software’s Snapseed adds even more options to the process then I’m super happy to be a G+ user.
Thanks for all the free love Google!
SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 12:43 pm
