Google has announced it is to acquire imaging platform Nik Software
and reports that Google+ now has more than 400 million members (100
million of whom are monthly acitve users), still less than half that of
key social networking rival Facebook.
The company said that the team at privately-held Nik, which offers
services similar to Instagram, would be joining Google effective
September 17. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
While the role Nik's team will take in Google wasn't outlined, the
deal would likely be used to bolster the company's web services and
social networking operations.
Based out of San Diego and Germany, Nik develops a number of photo editing and imaging tools and plug-ins.
"For nearly 17 years, we’ve been guided by our motto, 'photography
first', as we worked to build world class digital image editing tools,"
Nik said in a statement announcing the deal. "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."
Vic Gundotra, Google senior vice president of engineering, revealed the deal as part of a pair of announcements in a Google+ post. In addition to the Nik deal, Gundotra revealed the latest Google+ usage figures.
"It was only a year ago that we opened public sign-up, and we
couldn’t have imagined that so many people would join in just 12
months," Gundotra wrote in the post. "While Google+ is all about creating a better experience across Google, it’s also a destination."
The figures are good news for Google but it is still has a long way
to go catch up with Facebook which has over 900 million users, although more than 83 million profiles are thought to be fake.
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