Om Malik writes:
Since this past Thursday, I have heard whispers that Riya, a Redwood City, California-based photo service is being courted by Google. Now this rumor has been repeated by multiple sources, though not one of them is directly involved with the two companies. One of them indicated that this is still at due diligence stage. I am putting this in highly rumored and unconfirmed category. “Your inquiry is about rumor and speculation and we’re not able to respond to questions of this type,” Google spokesperson Barry Schnitt told me. I have left message for Riya founder Munjal Shah and also emailed him, but thus far no response.
Riya, as a company hasn’t even launched, and is supposed to have a coming out event at Tech Crunch’s BBQ this friday! Riya’s technology could be used to extend Google’s reach in the picture domain, where they are completely overshadowed by Yahoo. If this company ends up in the hands of Yahoo, well as far as photos go, its end game! I wonder if Microsoft made a play for the company? Of course, Riya is just the kind of technology that could help tag the photos of the big GigaPixel project.