Loom, a popular service that offers cloud-based photo storage, has just been acquired by Dropbox. "We look forward to this transition as the next step in creating a home for all of your photos and videos, seamlessly organized, while still keeping them at your fingertips," said founder Jan Senderek in a blog post announcing the deal.

Dropbox and Loom share many of the same ambitions when it comes to preserving your photo library and protecting those memories, Senderek said. That's embodied by the recently launched Carousel app, which Senderek describes as "a single home for all your photos and videos, automatically organized and always with you." Loom's team plans to help push Dropbox's photo services forward.

But unfortunately, the agreement also spells the end for Loom as customers know it today. The company has immediately halted new signups, and the service will shut down permanently on May 16th. Users can choose to automatically export their photos to Dropbox — and they'll automatically receive the same amount of cloud storage they previously had with Loom. But customers can also opt to receive a .zip file containing every image they've uploaded to Loom's servers. "We know this is a big deal," Senderek said. "After spending some serious time investigating if this was the right move for us, we realized that Dropbox has solved many problems around scaling infrastructure and at Dropbox the Loom team will be able to focus entirely on building great features with a fantastic user experience."