If you are looking for an excellent online photo editor, one of the best choices is Picnik.
Featuring a user-friendly interface and enough features to meet the needs of most digital photographers, Picnik has quickly gained a strong following. Of course, it’s helped that Picnik is free, although you’ve had to pay $24.95 a year for premium features. (Hat tip to Download Squad)
In a move that can only be described as surprising, Picnik has decided to eliminate the annual fee to use premium features. If, however, you still want to pay $24.95 a month, Picnik is offering a service that gives you access to new features, the ability to edit in full screen mode, and an advertising-free interface.
The decision to pretty much abandon its premium service makes you wonder about Picnik’s business plan. The company must believe that it will attract enough users to make it an attractive option for advertisers.
Of course, Picnik’s business model could also hinge of making itself nice and pretty for an acquisition. Last year, Flickr signed a partnership with Picnik that lets Flickr users access Picnik’s editing tools in a pretty seamless fashion. Picnik CEO Jonathan Sposato told Webware that Flickr has generated “double digit percentages of site growth”, as well as a healthy number of users who have migrated to the premium serfvice.
Another angle to Picnik’s decision is how its fits into the idea of freeconomics – the idea that free services are thriving on the Web because competition makes it difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to charge anything.
In the latest issue of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson has an article entitled “Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business” that talks about why free has become such a ubiquitous part of the online landscape. He suggests that since many online businesses can’t charge for their services, they will generate money primarily through advertising and premium services (a business model described as “freemium).
Who knows, maybe Picnik was inspired by Anderson’s thesis!
Technorati Tags: FreeconomiFreeconomics, Freemium, Photography, Picnik
One Comment
I’m a huge picnik fan. I’m also one of the early geeks who has such a jones for some of the premium features that I jumped on their pay-for-use bandwagon.
Their integration with the main photo sharing sites is fantastic. Some days I’m not at a computer that has complex photo editing software, and I can just pop into picnik and *presto*… some of their filters are quite sophisticated, and did I mention I am a huge fan?
I think they will still draw paid customers…. it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than photoshop.