Google announced on Friday that they will be shutting down Picasa (which they acquired back in 2004) within the coming months in favor of their Google Photos service. As per the announcement:
Since the launch of Google Photos…we’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos. We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products.
Originally founded in 2002 by the Lifescape company, Picasa became a key tool for the organization, editing, and sharing of digital photos online. After Google purchased the property two years later, Picasa gained many innovative attributes such as facial recognition, geotagging, and keyword integration.
In the press release, Google specifies what steps individuals or businesses can take if they have content currently with Picasa.
[T]he easiest way to still access, modify and share most of that content is to log in to Google Photos, and all your photos and videos will already be there. Using Google Photos, you can continue to upload and organize your memories, as well as enjoy other great benefits like better ways to search and share your images.
However, for those of you who don’t want to use Google Photos or who still want to be able to view specific content, such as tags, captions or comments, we will be creating a new place for you to access your Picasa Web Albums data. That way, you will still be able to view, download, or delete your Picasa Web Albums, you just won’t be able to create, organize or edit albums (you would now do this in Google Photos).
Google notes that these changes will begin to take effect this spring with the desktop application going dormant on March 15 and the closure of Picasa Web Albums on May 1, 2016.
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