Adobe To Launch Online, Ad-Supported Photoshop By September 1

Techcrunch reports on the bomb Adobe dropped yesterday on the many battling online photo editing startups.

The big question - after the question of where will all those talented people at Fauxto, Picnik, Picture2Life, Preloadr, Pixenate, and Snipshot will be working on January 1 - is, whether Adobe will, um, Flex its new platform muscle to enter the online video editing space as well. That would mean Photobucket, Jumpcut, Eyespot, Motionbox, and Gotuit will also be looking for something else to do. The only chance any of these companies has of surviving such a move by Adobe is to invest heavily right now in pushing the boundaries of editing/repurposing video already online, taking Gotuit's concept even further, or to sell their soul, without reservation, to a major media company, making way more of it than Eyespot has to date. It's just that simple. There will be no competition in the realm of what Adobe Premiere already accomplishes. Assuming that Adobe does not have unbearable restrictions, user agreements, or service problems, migration from all of these companies to the Adobe platform will be massive and irreversible.

The one player who seems to be conspicuously absent here is Google. Here is my prediction: Photobucket, the best photo service with the most robust video editing suite, dies a slow and painful death. Their feature set is too full-fledged for them or Google to stomach a buyout. Google picks up Jumpcut, integrates it with YouTube. Gotuit survives as a relatively independent parasite, allowing remixes from multiple platforms while everyone else sacrifices users to ensuring that their own content is king. Viacom buys Eyespot and messes with it for a while before throwing it in the trash. Disney and Apple merge and run a successful presidential campaign. Steve Jobs becomes Secretary of Defense, Mickey Mouse is First Lady, and Uncle Scrooge is Secretary of the Treasury. Scrooge is killed in a duel and Aaron Burr hangs.

Mark my words!

Update: For anyone under the mistaken impression that I have any idea what I'm talking about, I am thrilled to break the exciting news that the Photobucket video-editing tools were created by Adobe and were rolled out to premium users with a significant amount of forewarning on blogs that I read regularly almost two weeks ago. Color me embarrassed! I have to admit that I am surprised to see Adobe playing nice when they are big enough to buy out a competitor rather than partnering with them. but as long as Photobucket can stay on Adobe's good side, that part of my prediction is obviously moot. But the rest of it stands, right down to the hanging!