Google to acquire Panoramio

http://www.panoramio.com/blog/

Panoramio Announces Planned Acquisition by Google

Today, we are pleased to announce the planned acquisition of Panoramio by Google. This acquisition is a great opportunity for Panoramio uploaders to leverage Google’s reach, increasing the exposure of their photographs to photophiles around the world and for viewers to choose from a larger universe of photographs as Panoramio becomes more widely known. We hope to close the acquisition in mid to late June of 2007. Got questions? Go to Q&A to learn more.

Panoramio's Blog ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- Google Agrees to Acquire Panoramio May 31, 2007 Edward Mancho We are (we mean very) happy to announce that Panoramio will be acquired by Google. Taking photos from Panoramio into Google Earth has already been successful since John Hanke proposed it to us, and we see this acquisition as an inevitable consequence. To strengthen our ties with Google Earth over the past few months, by the end of April, we decided to take a step forward. After so much joint effort, frankly, we cannot imagine a better scenario than selling Panoramio to Google. Most people upload their own photos to Panoramio to share them via Google Earth, and it's cool to see Panoramio photos integrated into Google Earth. Therefore, this acquisition reaffirms the current win-win situation. Now, our user interface will not change; accounts, URLs, features... We will continue working on Panoramio as a team, but this time using Google's foundation to further integrate Panoramio into Google's mapping technology. We will also be available to answer emails directly at any time for better communication. This acquisition will bring many benefits to Panoramio users, starting with having better infrastructure to improve the reliability of Panoramio, more frequent updates to Panoramio's Google Earth layer, and more resources for some intangible tasks that require time, allowing us to work on new features. Pay attention to the growth of our small project, as its concept, which started a year and a half ago, has already been an amazing experience. We hope to make this step even bigger and continue to have your support. We have always been committed to reaching this point, but we know we couldn't do it without you, the wonderful community of people who upload their best photos to Panoramio. You deserve all the credit. There are no words to tell you how we feel when someone decides to choose Panoramio to share their photos. We have many ideas in the works. Our baby is still growing, so please stay tuned!

For Jose, Joaquin, and Edward