Google today revealed it has agreed to buy Nik Software, a German company that makes photo editing applications for amateur and professional photographers. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but according to The Verge, the acquisition was centered around the popular Snapseed app.
Snapseed is somewhat akin to Instagram in that it allows users to apply filters and perform other photo editing tasks on their mobile devices. Although the app is $4.99 and thus not as popular as the free Instagram, which also incorporates social networking features, Sanpseed gained over nine million users during its first year on sale and won Apple's coveted iPad App Of The Year award in 2011. The app is also available for Mac and Windows, and Nik Software is believed to be working on an Android app as well.
It's unclear exactly what Google's plans for Snapseed and Nik Software's other photography applications are, but we wouldn't be surprised to see some level of integration with Google+, given that photo sharing is playing an increasingly important role on the search giant's social network -- as it has been important for Facebook too.
Facebook users are uploading 250 million photos every day to the site. Despite its dominant position in this space the company decided to spend a billion dollars to acquire Instagram and beef up their mobile photo sharing offerings, an area they were a bit lacking. At the time Instagram had roughly 30 million users. Today, it has over 100 million users, according to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.