Panoramio's Blog


Google agrees to acquire Panoramio

May 31st, 2007 by Eduardo Manchón

We are very (and we mean very) happy to announce that Panoramio will be acquired by Google.

The integration of photos from Panoramio in Google Earth has been so successful since John Hanke suggested it that we see the acquisition of Panoramio as a natural consequence. We have tightened our relationship with Google Earth more and more in recent months, and at the end we decided to walk one step further. After so much work together, honestly, we couldn’t imagine a better scenario than selling Panoramio to Google. Most people upload their photos to Panoramio to share them through Google Earth, and it’s way cool to see Panoramio’s photos in Google Earth, so the upcoming acquisition reaffirms the current win-win situation.

For now, our user interface will not change; accounts, urls, features… We will keep working for Panoramio as a team, but this time using Google infrastructure as Panoramio further integrates into Google’s mapping technologies. We will also keep answering e-mails directly as much as possible.

The upcoming acquisition will bring many advantages to Panoramio users, starting with 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.

To watch our little project grow since its conception one and a half years ago has been an amazing experience, and we hope to make it even bigger with this step and with your continued support. We have worked hard to arrive to this point, but we know we could not do it without all of you, the wonderful community of people that upload their best photos to Panoramio. You deserve all the credit. There are no words to say how honoured we feel when someone decides to choose Panoramio for sharing their photos.

We have lots of ideas in the pipeline. Our baby is still growing, so stay tuned!

Regards,

José, Joaquín and Eduardo


121 Responses to “Google agrees to acquire Panoramio”  

  1. 1 Haochi

    Congratulations!

  2. 2 Santob

    Wow, congratulations Panoramio Team!

  3. 3 Enrique Dans

    Congratulations, guys!! That’s an absolutely logical fit, and I truly believe the infusion of resources in the company will allow you to offer pretty interesting products real fast. Keep it up!

  4. 4 Mike Rohde

    WOW! Congratulations guys! Now I officially know a few Google employees, and have a first logo design aquired by Google. Great work! :-)

  5. 5 Jim Witkowski

    Congratulations. I’m sure you’re excited about being part of the Google family. I hope Panoramio continues to grow into another well polished Google product.

    jw

  6. 6 dhtml

    This is great news - this is be a tremendous asset for both of you.

    It must be a great feeling when Google expresses an interest in you.

    How was it like getting that first call or letter from them inquiring about your company?? :-D

  7. 7 Mithgol the Webmaster

    Another good enterprose sold to Jews. Feels like in eltsinist Russia.

  8. 8 Matthew Walters

    Congratulations team! It’s been great to see the site go from strength to strength - I remember when we didn’t even have tags!

    Matthew

  9. 9 Carlos

    Congratulations guys! Are you alchemist or what? everything you touch (loquo, panoramio) becomes gold!

  10. 10 Sebastian

    Hi Eduardo, Hi Cuenca,

    Congratulations from Germany. Now rock the Google-world ;-)

  11. 11 javifields

    enhorabuena!

  12. 12 Hulius

    Congratulations! Good job!

    El trabajo bien hecho al final tiene su recompensa. Enhorabuena!

  13. 13 Laurenz A. Reinitzer

    i hope the accounts will stay free. the faster updates to google earth are great.

    cheers laurenz

  14. 14 Claudio Pedrazzi

    Well, it was probably the logical consequence of the huge success of the idea. I am happy for you, José, Joaquín and Eduardo. For Panoramio, I hope for the best. If the accounts remain free (at least for geographically descriptive photos) it will certainly gain from the integration. I hope that Picasa, already part of Google Pack, will receive an “upload to Panoramio” option, for geotagged photos.

    On the other side, I hope to be wrong, but I fear that the whole site will become a little more “impersonal”. It was fun knowing “who” was behind the scene working hard and trying to keep up the good work.

    Anyway, my congratulations!
    Claudio

  15. 15 Juan Zamoro

    Congratulations, this is a great announcement. It’s a hopefully notice for spanish entrepreneurs. May be not the major adquisition for Google but… who said a spanish startup is not possible?

  16. 16 Pieter

    Congratulations ! I was allready thinking for myself that it would be great thing to integrate more with Google.
    Hope there will come an interface for Picasa also.
    btw, seems my Picasa-Google Earth geotagged picture aren’t automaticaly mapped anymore in Panoramio, possible ?

  17. 17 Gaurav

    This is great news…Congratulations.
    It was inevitable..

  18. 18 mabut

    I sincerely congratulate you , it is a deserved achievement !

    What will you do now that you are rich ?

    Marco

  19. 19 Jackie Rueda

    Muchísimas felicitaciones!!!!
    Es la consecuencia natural y esperada.

    Un abrazo desde Montreal.

  20. 20 Aloriel

    Congratulations, really, you’ve done a great job.

  21. 21 Terrablau

    felicidades y mucha suerte con el nuevo proyecto!

  22. 22 Denis

    Well, well… congratulations to you guys!

    I hope the only effect on Panoramio will be more speed for the Panoramio websites and maybe a shorter time for some bugfixes.

    Cheers!

  23. 23 Sam Sethi

    Well done chaps. Blogged it on Vecosys. How much was the acquisition? Cash or Stock?

  24. 24 ruben

    Enhorabuena Callosino!!

  25. 25 mate

    WOW! Congratulations originator and administrator!!!
    I feel happy that name of Panoramio is remain. I expect more stable service and free from now on. I will upload more photograph from now on!!

  26. 26 Rahman

    Congratulations Panoramio Team!

  27. 27 Joaquín Cuenca Abela

    Hi guys,

    I’ve added a couple more boxes, and fixed a few speed problems with the database. There is still room for improvement (mainly in the user’s page), but things should be better these days.

    Cheers,

  28. 28 Jesus

    Enhorabuena por la compra venta

  29. 29 KaBu

    I expected nothing else… good job!
    KaBu

  30. 30 Tommy

    Congratulations Panoramio Team!
    I just read it in German that you are a Google-Company now.
    Then I will register very soon…
    Tommy

  31. 31 fabrizio.reale

    Congratulations from Italy !

  32. 32 Jared J. Myers

    ¡Os felicito! - No solamente tuvisteis una idea fantástica en el momento apropiado, sino dedicáis un montón de trabajo constante en esto - y se notó el efecto de todo el labor por el mejoramiento constante. ¡Espero que vayáis a obtener lo que merecéis!

    También esperoque no se vayan a cambiar drásticamente los términos de uso para Panoramio; p. ej. respecto a los derechos del autor de las fotos. Me gusta como es ahora, también podría vivir con una licencia general pública (GPL)bajo la cuál publicaría mis fotos - espero que no consideren hacernos transferir los derechos enteros a Google.

    ¡Suerte!

    JJM

  33. 33 justinf

    this is just so awesome on so many levels. now we can REALLY start to photograph the entire planet.
    plugging into that enormous Google infrastructure will do wonders for Panoramio’s performance.

    awesome. just awesome guys. well done!

  34. 34 Isaac

    Felicidades al peazo equipo de Panoramio, sabía que tarde o temprano acabaríais triunfando de esta manera. Nosotros, los usuarios, seguiremos colaborando para llenar cada parte de este inmenso mundo con nuestras fotos.

    ¡¡¡¡ F E L I C I D A D E S !!!!

  35. 35 Panamon_Creel

    Congrats,
    >>>>You will be assimilated, resistance is futile :)

  36. 36 Photographer

    YAY!

  37. 37 Chungen Hung

    Why is picasa geomapped with google earth no longer work when i upload to panoramio?!
    its been like 4 days now, and i am very frustrated with no answers.
    I’ve also emailed the admin, no reply yet

  38. 38 walvaRo

    Normal que estéis contentos ehh!!! jajaja menudo dinerito habréis ganado…
    Desde luego Panoramio siempre me ha parecido una idea genial y muy util para navegar por google earth.

    En fin, enhorabuena por la venta y ahora a por un nuevo proyecto…

    Si necesitáis un diseñador no dudeis en contactar con migo ! :-)

  39. 39 Raul

    Felicidades chicos, habéis hecho un trabajo genial, y espero que siga así en el futuro. Se ha notado de veras vuestro trabajo
    Enhorabuena
    good luck!

  40. 40 Ryan Joseph

    This is excellent! I haven’t been a Panaramio user for very long, but I love what I’ve seen! The integration with Google can only be a good thing, congrats! But…I would love to see Google’s search integrated into the site. I don’t think Panaramio’s search works very well, from my limited experience.

  41. 41 magic surf bus

    Panoramio is such a good idea I always knew you’d be ‘acquired’ at some point - a just reward for all your hard work. Do Panoramio members now qualify for discounted shares in Google? ;-)

    Any chance of Panoramio feeding directly into Google Image Search via the tag system in the future? That way the results would bring up decent sized images of quality instead of random website graphics. Just a thought anyway.

    Well done team - keep up the good work.

  42. 42 montuno

    Enhorabuena,

    La ideas buenas no existen, de lo que se trata es de ejecutarlas bien ;) y vosotros habeis demostrado que sois capaces. Me alegro mucho por vosostros y me enorgullece que un proyecto español llegue a este nivel.

    Os deseo mucha suerte en esta nueva etapa.

  43. 43 Ryan Joseph

    Oh, and I think it would be excellent for Google Maps to feature a Panaramio layer, not just Earth. That would be sweet.

  44. 44 Tasos K

    This is excellent!
    Congratulations Panoramio Team and “Panoramians”!

  45. 45 Robertico

    Todo u exito.Enhorabuena Eduardo y compañia.
    Un abrazo de tu primo.

  46. 46 Joaquín Cuenca Abela

    Hi Pieter,

    that bug has been fixed now. You should be able to upload your photos geolocated with Picasa Google Earth now and they will be mapped automatically, as before.

    Cheers,

  47. 47 Bo Eide

    An expected, and deserved development. I wonder now, what will happen further on, in a way I rather liked the “old” setup.
    Congrats, guys.

  48. 48 Pablo

    Enhorabuena! Una vez más, demostrais que, gracias a Internet, una idea sencilla pero práctica puede dar increíbles frutos.

    Espero que os compren Panoramio con muchos millones y tengais la oportunidad de visitar personalmente aquellos sitios que nosotros, humildemente, solo vemos gracias a las fotos publicadas en vuetro sitio web.

    Seguid así.

    Un saludo.

  49. 49 ivivian

    Congratulations from zhengzhou,china!

    ivivian
    http://669775.blogspot.com
    http://www.panoramio.com/user/190696

  50. 50 Frank Keeney

    A great reward for so much hard work.

  51. 51 Albert

    Congratulations!!
    If I may mention a problem too:
    Could you normalize the extreme sharpening of the resized photos? We have been complaining about it for several weeks. It really destroys many good photos.

  52. 52 Douglas MacGregor

    I first joined Panoramio to post my best photos on Google Earth. The full integration of these two great enterprises can only make this process smoother and more efficient.

    You guys fullsy deserve the rewards for your hard work and imagination over the past couple of years. Well done!

  53. 53 Rodolfo Carpintier

    I will not tell you… I told you so, Eduardo…but it is a tremendous fit and, as Enrique Dans posted before, with new resources you will do marvellous things for your users…:-)

  54. 54 Alexandre Matos

    Congratulations to all the team.
    This planned aquisition is the prize for all the effort you put on this quality web site.

    All the best

    Alex

  55. 55 Pieter

    Great !
    Thanks, allready tested and it works :)

  56. 56 vinz

    awesome idea. i love the concept!!!

  57. 57 David Saunders

    I just find this great site then Google buys it the next day!

    Well done and congratulations - This is so interesting. What a coup for you and Google,

    David
    Charlotte NC

  58. 58 Oscar Reales

    Enhorabuena Eduardo, me alegro mucho por vosotros. También me alegra que un “garage venture” (como dijiste en IMAN), sin apenas presupuesto, pero cargadito de ilusión y trabajo se haga semejante hueco en el mundo de internet, y es que las ideas y la ilusión tienen que tener su peso.

  59. 59 Bloemendaal

    The best ideas are always simple… congratulations to the entire Panoramio team !

  60. 60 jim_julian

    The announcement of the acquistion is what led me to find you. I’m sure the attendent publicity will cause an explosion in Panaramio membership.

  61. 61 Tom

    Congrats - but if you’ve started integrating the code already, it’s frustrating. ALL of my photos have apparently moved over the course of the last week or two. UGH. This is frustrating.

  62. 62 Andrés Carrió

    Habeis conseguido empezar. No os durmais en los laureles. Enhorabuena chicos!!

  63. 63 Joerg

    Why to congratulate ? The Panoramio Team made its work very good before…
    If Google decide to buy Panoramio -for lots of money- ask yourself: why do they ? To make a good business - of couse. And who will make the business for them ? Those who will see OUR pictures. So don’t wonder if we have to pay one time to see our own pics.
    My only hope is - that this idea is wrong.
    Regards to you all Joerg

  64. 64 Alexandre Matos

    Congratulations to the Panoramio Team.
    This is a good prize for all your effort building and manging this quality site

    Alex

  65. 65 muba

    Congratulations

    “We have lots of ideas in the pipeline. Our baby is still growing, so stay tuned!” Was glad to see to that which tells me you are still in there developing Panoramio

  66. 66 German Hergenrether

    Desde Cañuelas, Argentina, felicitaciones por este gran paso. Ojalá sigan conservando una de vuestras características más valiosas, que es la buena atención del usuario.

  67. 67 limak

    gratuluję!

  68. 68 AlexMatos

    Congratulations again,

    As a new user, about 2 months old, I did not put my first congratulations post with my nick name, but with my name, which is very similar, so I decided to post again the congratulations so my name and nick will be linked to each other.
    Only cause one thing i can’t cope with is “annonimous”.

    Best regards to the Panoramio Team, and all users.

    AlexMatos
    (Alexandre Matos)

  69. 69 Dwarf Universe

    Muy bueno chicos, las cosas bien hechas tienen su recompesa. Un saludo enorme desde Dublin y seguid de esa manera.

  70. 70 taoy

    Congratulations!! It’s inevitable.

  71. 71 AxHo

    Congratulations to the team! This website was a great vision of you and it is worth to be rewarded for it, now. Keep on with your great work and hopefully also the members will benefit from Google’s infrastructure and knownledge. I am anxious to see your announced improvements and enhancements, respectively. Cheers, Axel

  72. 72 TeresaSpy

    Gratuluje, ciesze sie i uważnie sledze dalsze wyniki, na ile moge zrozumiec obcy dla mnie jezyk angielski. Prosze o informacje po polsku, jesli to mozliwe. Pozdrawiam serdecznie.

  73. 73 nickelvd

    Congrats from Amsterdam. I hope you will maintain your identity, and beat the other photo services because of it.

  74. 74 John Latter

    I’ve only been a member since March of this year but I’ve enjoyed my experience of Panoramio so much that I’m really pleased for the Panoramio team and can quite imagine how delighted they must be!

    (As an aside, does anyone know when the forum will reappear? Google Earth have updated the terrain in some areas and all my photos have been ‘moved’ slightly and I don’t know whether to re-position them or not).

  75. 75 anitta

    Congratulations to the Panoramio Team for this achievment. Keep it up….

  76. 76 Flavio

    I’m the last, but not the least one, who wish to join to all the previous congratulations for the great news! I think and hope that this happening may be turned into a… “happYning” ;-) for each user of Panoramio. Probably it has already become a real thing, as the prize for the hard work done and seriousness of all the staff, operating in the background. I wish them all the best success for the future. Congratulations to all!

  77. 77 search

    Great job. Just shows hard work pays off!

  78. 78 Alan Marks

    Well, I suppose that this is a salute that Google has bought you out, it means that you must have done something right.

    What I want to know is: What will this mean for my Internet marketing portal

  79. 79 Igor_99

    Congratulations!

  80. 80 Amarengo

    Felicitaciones a Google, se hizo de una excelente comunidad y una gran idea. Y muchas gracias a los fundadores de Panoramio por toda la paciencia con sus usuarios.

    Saludos desde el Perú.

    Amarengo

  81. 81 Dallas59

    Great! OMG! Please get the forum running again!!!! I miss everybody!

  82. 82 Don Albonico

    What is going on with the forums! They have been down for way to long for it to be a security issue.

  83. 83 valeriu

    Congratulations

  84. 84 Carlos Sieiro del Nido

    Hola Joaquín y Eduardo y resto del equipo de Panoramio. Me siento muy orgulloso como español del éxito de vuestro portal a nivel mundial. Era de esperar algo así por el exponencial aumento de las fotos y de usuarios que íbais teniendo. Felicidades de nuevo.

  85. 85 LupusBXL

    Dear José, Joaquín and Eduardo,
    Congratulations also from my side (as a rather new Panoramio user). It feels always great if one finds one’s own concepts and ideas honoured by an undisputed ‘number one’ in the field … I know that very well ;-)
    That said, I feel always a bit sad to see the really big incumbents snapping up the clever start-ups … diversity is a value per se.
    One last wish: I missing the forum and would love to see it available again.
    cheers from [belgium](http://www.panoramio.com/user/422936/tags/brabant), [christian](http://www.panoramio.com/photo/2438110)

  86. 86 Klettergriffe

    Eduardo, cool post. Great Job. Peter :-)

  87. 87 ChipStephan

    Congratulations again. I’m glad you’re being rewarded for the great work you’ve done. And I second Dallas59’s request. When you are fully integrated into Google, are we contributors going to be moved to and/or added to the GE Community? Frankly, the GE Community forum (which isn’t a phpBB forum) is somewhat preferable to the old Panoramio version.

  88. 88 Damu

    Congratulations!

  89. 89 Cingo

    Wonderful!!…..But, y don’t see nohing at the south pol!!! WHY !!!! No snow , No ice ????

  90. 90 Rembert Satow

    So here’s the forum for the time. I remember a thread in “share your pics” about “What will happen on May 31st?” So there.

  91. 91 zhongbo1127

    This is great news ,keep it up

  92. 92 Madison

    Parabéns a todos da equipe PANORAMIO, vocês merecem.

  93. 93 Julian

    Enhorabuena a lo dos!!!. Os lo mereceis es la justa recompensa a un magnífico trabajo. Da gusto ver que aquí en esta España también hay gente con ideas maravillosas. Suerte en esta nueva etapa de vuestra vida.

  94. 94 Wim de Vries

    As long as the forum is closed, I will leave my tipp for positioning your photos with a car-navigator here. Have a look at the following link:

    http://www.panoramio.com/photo/2648416

    Regards from Bonn, Germany

    Wim

  95. 95 Fernando

    Felicidades y suerte. Spanish rules.

  96. 96 snorth

    Congrats,

    Now lots of time and money to flesh out the feature set.

    It would be great to search for the photos that I have yet to locate.

    Cheers,

    Sheldon

  97. 97 Anonymous

    Congratulations!

  98. 98 Kim

    I’m excited, too! I have so much fun posting my own photos, and just browsing everyone else’s.

    I wish I had all the time in the world just to look @ photos! What a great job that would be!

    Congrats, guys, and we can’t wait to see what will be done!

  99. 99 Luigi Bertuzzi

    Wondering why the comment I posted sometime between 5th and 9th June vanished .. did I say something wrong?
    My congratulations included an item for a “wish list” .. not an off-topic issue, I hope.
    Best from Italy,
    Luigi

  100. 100 kgram

    Panoramio team, I think we deserve an oficial info on forum.
    After all without forum there is not community, and without community there is not Panoramio.

  101. 101 kgram

    Panoramio team, I think we deserve an oficial info on forum.
    After all without forum there is not community, and without community there is not Panoramio.
    I received a message “duplicate comment detected “. But this is my first comment on the blog ?

  102. 102 Kostas Grammenidis

    I received a message “duplicate comment detected “. But this is my first comment on the blog ?
    Anyway it was about official info on forum situation.

  103. 103 Anonymous

    I would NEVER have sold my baby to Google!
    Hope you enjoy the money.

  104. 104 Kostas K

    Will you be acquired by Google soon?
    Anyway, congratulations, Panoramio!

  105. 105 Stefanie

    Congrat!!! That’s really cool!

    1 eustions tho: Will all pictures on Panoramio be used by Google? Liek pictures with people or… cars, flowers… pictures that don’t show landmarks?

  106. 106 Oscar Sacchi

    Chicos!
    Felicitaciones!!!
    Por tener una buena idea, (cosa que puede tener mucha gente), y por haber tenido fe en ella, la constancia y el tesón para llevarla a cabo, (que tiene muy poca gente). Y, sobre todo por haber triunfado a una edad en que tienen mucho tiempo para disfrutarlo!!!
    Un abrazo
    Oscar
    PD. Para expresarlo en un argentinismo: ¡han tenido un culo bárbaro, chicos!

  107. 107 dzx

    I’d like to upload my photos but they say that:
    Sorry, we were unable to upload your picture. Please try again later.
    Why? I’ve seen this message too many times!
    I need your advise.

  108. 108 dzx

    It’s a great idea, but how can i use it?

  109. 109 ZeRego

    Parabéns a toda a equipa do PANORAMIO pelo trabalho desenvolvido.

    Congratulations to all team of PANORAMIO for the developed work.

    http://www.panoramio.com/user/424581

  110. 110 Roland1 (35049)

    Most of us were positiv euphoric when the acquisition with Google was published. But now we get no information since two weeks what’s the matter about the Forum. Is this the first negative effect of this acquisition?

    It should be not a big problem to write some words into the “disable-panel”.

  111. 111 Carlos Baeza

    La excelencia que habeis demostrado en la creacion, estructuracion, disponibilidad y dedicacion tenian que dar sus frutos. Ejemplar es vuestra capacidad y entrega en PANORAMIO que todos nosotros os agradecemos mucho.
    ¡¡¡ F E L I C I D A D E S !!!

  112. 112 fotofriend

    Is switching off the forum the first order coming from google ? What will be the next…….

  113. 113 rosina lamberti

    rosina lamberti on Jun 17th, 2007 said:

    Hi Eduardo, what can we do when another user claims my photos as he own http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1014335 [Angels trumpet](http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1014335) by rosina lamberti

    kamaly said:

    Rosina - are you aware that another user (285731) has copied this photo and is also claiming it, as photo 1447139 ? He’s also copied and is claiming Snemann’s green fields, and several others.

    please help

  114. 114 alwyn

    Congratulations!

  115. 115 Ana García Sª. de Pablo

    Felicidades por tan estupendo proyecto!

  116. 116 Nicolas M.

    Félicitations également en provenance de la France.
    Je découvre l’univers de Panoramio et je trouve votre idée très intéressante et enrichissante pour tous.
    Bonne continuation.

  117. 117 Kostas Grammenidis

    Don’t you think we, the enthousiastic fans of panoramio, deserve a new topic with some info on the forum case, Eduardo?

  118. 118 Roberto Maldonado C.

    WOW! Congratulations guys!
    Felicidades y sigan adelante!!!!

  119. 119 AxHo

    I totally agree with Kostas and Roland. Without the forum panoramio is less fun. We need (and deserve) some further information. Why isn’t there a road map published to inform us? At least a link to a affiliate Google forum / website would be okay. Fortunately, your new threads show that you seem to be still alive. By the way, I don’t like the new grey icon in GE - it should be more colourful.

  120. 120 PJ

    So why the hell is there no longer a panoramio layer in google earth!

  121. 121 Robert

    Congratulations for being part of Google Family.

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