Yesterday Picnik (past coverage), one of the great RIA examples, took the beta tag away and rolled out a bunch of new features version as part of a 1.0 release.
Yesterday Picnik (past coverage), one of the great RIA examples, took the beta tag away and rolled out a bunch of new features version as part of a 1.0 release. Before I joined Adobe I was one of the very first bloggers to see Picnik and I was very impressed. This 1.0 milestone is great for the team and for anyone who wants to see browser based RIAs succeed.
The new features include Photobucket support (in addition to Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook), and some new effects and a shape tool that gives you more options when adding some pizzaz to your picture. They also addd effect painting which allows you to apply a certain effect to a specific area in your photo. They've also added some touch up tools and a new frame library. Most importantly they have rolled out a premium version which will cost $24.95 for the year and it will get you access to a number of new effects, shapes, and fonts plus some special tooling. Finally Picnik has a way to monetize.
I heard someone say that one of the things Picnik does so well is that it doesn't look stale and corporate like most software. They've embraced the Web 2.0 look (in a good way) and focused very heavily on a light, fun user experience. When you combine that with the feature set they have, you get a really great piece of software. It's that magic that all RIAs should try to capture. Picnick does it better than most and I think that's going to be a major driver of their success.
