About Picasa
Picasa was created in 2001 by Michael Herf and Lars Perkins of IdeaLab, a high-tech Pasadena company. Google bought it in 2004 as a part of their efforts to expand their opportunity for advertisers. Because Google is free to use, the company heavily relies on revenue from advertisers. In fact, in 2003, advertisements generated 95% of Google’s revenue. The 18 employees of Picasa moved to Google’s product development center in Santa Monica after the buyout.
Initially, before Google owned Picasa, Google and IdeaLab worked together to use Picasa on Google’s Blogger service. Now, Google has expanded the functions of Picasa to include more private use and even more public use. Picasa Web Albums allows users to add photos to ablums that are not their own. Alternately, Picasa can be downloaded and used privately on one’s personal computer to edit photos that are not posted on a web album. LA Times
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