Google getting its own Instagram?

Google confirmed Monday that it has bought Nik Software, which makes online photo-editing tools including the well-regarded Snapseed app for iPhones and iPads.

Nik  makes a variety of tools for amateur and professional photographers, but The Verge tech blog says its sources report  that  Google has plans to build Nik’s technology into the Google+ social network to compete with Facebook’s recent acquisition of the much-better known Instagram mobile photo sharing service.

“We want to help our users create photos they absolutely love, and in our experience Nik does this better than anyone,” Google’s Vic Gundotra wrote in a Google+ post on Monday.

Gundotra a senior vice president who oversees the company’s social business, also took the opportunity to announce that Google+ has reached the milestone of more than 400 million registered accounts in its first year.

Google+ still lags in popularity compared with Facebook, which claims more than 900 million people uses its service every month. Google+ just reached the 100 million mark for monthly active users, according to Gundotra.

Nik Software is a 17-year-old company with offices in Germany and San Diego; terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Brandon Bailey (143 Posts)

Brandon Bailey covers Google, Facebook and Yahoo for the San Jose Mercury News, reporting on the business and culture of the Internet.