French Start-up StreamNation Acquired Picturelife

StreamNation announced the acquisition of Picturelife, Inc., a US-based photo storage start-up.

Here is a letter by Jonathan Benassaya, founder, StreamNation:

At StreamNation we’ve always put a lot of efforts on the video and audio side while Picturelife magnified all your photos. For us, Picturelife has always been the reference in terms of photo service.

When we first met with Nate Westheimer, Picturelife co-founder and CEO, the thing that struck me was how much we were sharing the same mission: offer the best place for your media online. We’ve had many discussions to partner together and we eventually offered Picturelife to join us.

With the combination of both services we are now offering the best experience for your digital media.

Now that Picturelife is part our family, let me try to answer some anticipated questions:

For the Picturelife users:

• What will happen with your photos and videos? Nothing, you all keep everything you’ve uploaded in the past
• What will happen to your account? Nothing, you keep the same credentials to connect to PictureLife and you will be able to upload the same way
• What will happen to my subscription? Absolutely nothing, this operation is completely transparent for you
• Is there any impact on the support? Absolutely not, the support will remain the same
• What will be the impact on PictureLife product? In the short term, PictureLife will stay the same. In the long term we will make sure to keep PictureLife’s DNA and continue the impressive work achieved by the team until today

For the StreamNation users:
What will be the link with StreamNation? Obviously our objective is for you to use Picturelife as soon as possible with your photos.

So here is our plan:

• First, Picturelife and StreamNation use two different platforms so our first objective will be to merge the two platforms into one: we host our own servers while Picturelife is on Amazon cloud.
• Second, we will start working on the account management to offer a single sign-in/sign-up across the two products.
• Third we will launch new offers combining the new services so eventually you will have one single account, one single subscription, one platform, two products and all your media

How can I benefit from Picturelife with my current plan on StreamNation?
As soon as the first steps of the migration of the two platforms will be completed, you will be able to benefit from your subscription in Picturelife.

What will happen to Shutter?
In the short term nothing, we are currently thinking about the next steps for this application.

It’s gonna be a fun ride and we will keep you all posted on the progress of the migration.

More on Picturelife
In late 2010, long time friends Charles Forman, Jacob DeHart and Nate Westheimer started a conversation about digital photos and the state of their digital archives. Their photos were scattered across devices and services, and their desktop apps had become kludgy and unmanageable. Meanwhile, the cloud storage companies in the market were great at storing Powerpoints and Excel files, but did not have the focus or understanding of how to store and create meaning from large personal photo collections.

Early the next year, they decided to found a company dedicated to proving a digital home for their photos and videos, and Picturelife was born. In 2011, the team grew to include some of the best engineers, working on a durable platform, and, in 2012, the team released the first private beta version of Picturelife.

Since that launch, Picturelife became an acclaimed cloud storage companies in the field. In 2012, it became one of the first cloud storage providers to provide RAW photo support, deduplication and similar sets in the cloud, and in 2013 the company became one of the first to extensively support video as well. In 2014, Picturelife broke new ground for cloud photo storage upon it’s 3.0 release, offering unlimited storage and shared family accounts.