Search engine giant Google has revealed their latest acquisition deal.
San Francisco — Search engine Google continues its latest shopping spree with the acquisition of Spanish photo-sharing website Panoramio, which lets people upload photos and identify where they were taken by placing them on Google Earth or Google Maps, where they can be viewed by the public.
The search engine, who is quickly buying anyone and everyone they express an interest in, has said that the community photo website, will be used within its Google Earth package.
The announcement was made by John Hanke, Google’s director for Maps, Earth and Local, on the Google corporate blog.
Users of Google Earth will be familiar with the small blue and white compass icons dotted all over the map that open up a photo of a specific location when clicked on.
The Panoramio layer of location-tagged photos was added to Google’s virtual globe program as a default layer, together with the Wikipedia layer at the beginning of 2007. Both layers are among the most popular layers of Google Earth.
We have been working with Panoramio for some time — its photos have been a default layer in Google Earth since the beginning of the year, Hanke said. “This layer will remain in place as our teams work together toward further integrating this amazing content, generated by many, into our mapping technologies.”
Panoramio is a community website whereby digital photographers can “geo-locate,” store and organize their photographs.
Earlier in 2007 Panoramio announced that the number of geo-referenced photos in its database had hit the one million mark. This rapid expanse of its database was made possible through a growing community of users continually uploading photos to the site and tagging them with their geographical location.
The acquisition of Panoramio will incorporate that website, its underlying technology, its content, developers, and user community into the Google Geo product mix, according to a Q&A posted to the Google site. Panoramio will add interesting, useful content to Google products and will bolster Google’s engineering and technical resources.
Taken by Panoramio’s striking images documenting settings from all over the world, like moonscapes in Croatia, dramatic sunsets in Australia, and innovative architecture in the United Arab Emirates, for that reason, Google said the company was as interested in Panoramio’s technology as it was its user base for some time.
In a blog posting, Google said it was buying the company to integrate its services more closely with its own — although it is not saying exactly how yet — and to boost its own technical resources. It should also help to strengthen Panoramio’s infrastructure, leading to more reliable service for end users.
The move should help to strengthen Google’s position against Yahoo for providing online photo services. Earlier this month, Yahoo! – one of Google’s main rivals – began to add thumbnails of Flickr images for popular domestic and international landmark searches into their main search results, whose users can also locate their photos on Google Earth, although they do not appear as the default layer.
With the launch of Google’s universal search feature also this month, the world’s leading search engine has also started to integrate photos, along with other types of media, into its SERPs. As a result, it might not be farfetched to assume that the Panoramio technology will enable Google to produce more relevant pictures to geographical searches.
Other possible ways in which Google could use the Panoramio content could be the enhancement of the street view feature in Google Maps, which was rolled out only a few days ago, or the integration of new features in Google’s photo management software Picasa.
While it is free for users to keep their photos on the Panoramio website, photographers receive no payment for the use of their photos on applications like Google Earth. Although the majority of photos submitted are taken by amateur photographers, many show a very high standard. Photographers keep full copyright of their work, but not every uploaded photo automatically shows up on Google Earth. Photos are uploaded to Google Earth on a monthly basis, with photos being filtered by Panoramio, as well as by Google.
Users can search and browse Panoramio photos and suggest edits to the metadata associated with the photos. Panoramio also offers an API that enables web developers to embed Panoramio functionality into their websites, and the company has offered a default layer with Google Earth since the beginning of the year.
Passwords, under information, and other details will remain intact and unchanged throughout the transition, the companies said. Users will also have an option to opt out of the merger, although doing so will delete their content and user information from the Panoramio site.
Google recently announced the acquisition of GreenBorder, which it will use to enhance its security offerings.
For Panoramio, the company said it wanted to tie itself closer to Google. “Although the integration is already in place and functioning, we believed a deeper relationship would add value to the Panoramio experience for our users,” the Google Q&A said, apparently attributing the comment to Panoramio executives.
Eduardo Manchón of Panoramio said he “could not imagine a better scenario than selling Panoramio to Google.” He adds that the acquisition will enable them to work on “a better infrastructure to improve the reliability of Panoramio, more frequent updates of Panoramio’s Google Earth layer, and more resources for some invisible tasks that take time out from working on new features.”
Panoramio was launched in October 2005. About 300,000 people had signed up for the service as of March this year, and in February the site had 4 million unique visitors and 30 million page views, according to Panoramio.
Financial terms of the acquisition, which is pending, were not disclosed. Google said it planned to keep operating the site for now and that there won’t be any immediate changes for Panoramio’s users.
The price Google has paid for Panoramio has not yet been revealed. While the terms of the acquisition are still being negotiated, Panoramio are hoping to close the acquisition in mid to late June 2007. The spring season of 2007 has been marked by Google’s extraordinary spending spree, among which we saw the acquisition of online advertising company DoubleClick, video conferencing software firm Marratech AB, feed management provider Feedburner and security software company Greenborder.
Panoramio said it was “very (and we mean very) happy” to be acquired by Google. “To watch our little project grow since its conception one and a half years ago has been an amazing experience,” cofounder Eduardo Manchón wrote in a blog posting.