PMA 2004: DIMA, the Digital Imaging Marketing Association have announced the winner of the 2004 Innovative Digital Product Award. This year the award went to Picasa's Hello, an instant photo sharing application that enables users to share images securely over a peer-to-peer network and chat about them in real time. Last year the honor went to the company's flagship photo organizing software, Picasa.

Press Release:

Picasa Wins Prestigious DIMA Innovative Digital Product Award at PMA For Second Consecutive Year

PASADENA, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Feb. 23, 2004 Picasa's Hello Chosen by Industry Experts as an Influence on the Future of Digital Imaging

Picasa, Inc.(TM), the leading developer of software which enables photographers to effortlessly organize, manage and share digital photos, has been awarded the prestigious 2004 "DIMA Innovative Digital Product Award" for the second consecutive year. This year the award went to Picasa's Hello, an instant photo sharing application that enables users to share images securely over a peer-to-peer network and chat about them in real time. Last year the honor went to the company's flagship photo organizing software, Picasa.

Hello was among only ten products chosen out of the hundreds on display at the PMA 2004 Show, the photo industry's premier trade show held in Las Vegas February 12-15. Winners were determined by digital imaging industry editors and writers based on the utilization of new technologies and/or applications in such a way as to make it either unique or the first of its kind. The high quality products must show themselves to be an influence on the future of digital imaging.

"We are thrilled to once again be recognized by the digital imaging experts at DIMA for developing technology that is transforming digital imaging," said Lars Perkins, CEO of Picasa. "Since launching Hello in October, we have been overwhelmed by the response to the program and are excited to already have more than 150,000 registered users of Hello. These people are now enjoying how simple it is to send lots of pictures to their family and friends without the need to attach files or upload to web sites. We are more convinced than ever that Hello is the future of picture sharing."

Hello is offered as a free download at www.hello.com and can be used with or without Picasa, the company's award-winning digital photo organizing software. For consumers who have Picasa, Hello is automatically integrated, allowing one-click photo sharing. Users can see which pictures their friend is viewing and can chat about them in real-time. Hello makes it simple to share single photos or hundreds at a time without the need for attachments or uploading to Web sites. Consumers who do not have Picasa can use Windows Explorer to select pictures to share. Any pictures received via Hello are automatically organized and stored in a Picasa album, organized by the sender's name. To print high-quality prints at home, Hello automatically retrieves the high-resolution version of a picture from the sender, eliminating the need to send email requests back and forth.

Picasa has been used by hundreds of thousands of people to organize their digital photo collection. Picasa users do not have to manually organize their digital photos; upon installation all images on the hard drive are automatically organized into albums, and new images are automatically added as they are saved to a user's hard drive. Picasa allows its users to browse quickly through the entire collection of photos on their PC by displaying thumbnails of each image. Advanced features include: cropping, rotation, red-eye removal, keyword search, slideshow (with music), photo timeline display, and exportation to TiVo. Consumers can purchase Picasa for $29.00 or download a free 15-day trial at: www.picasa.net.