Picasa is owned by Google, so it’s always been a bit vexing that the site’s search function lagged behind Flickr’s. Google is apparently taking steps to remedy the situation, as a new update allows users to “[d]iscover and explore public photos posted by others in the Picasa Web Albums community.”
There are still some unresolved issues, however. As Google Blogoscoped’s Philipp Lenssen asked, “what are you gonna do with the photos you find? Well, you can look at them, but there’s the nice movement of Creative Commons which makes the photo search of competing Flickr so incredibly valuable. Because at Flickr, users can upload photos tagged with a CC license, and other users can then restrict their search to CC photos only.”
(“This way,” Lenssen explained, “you can actually include or remix the content you find for use on your own website.)
The responses in the “Comments” section were equally ambivalent – many people just had questions about getting this new feature to work. Yet Picasa seemed to win a few hearts and minds with an increase in its free storage quota.
It’s now at “1GB (and counting!),” according to Google. “That’s enough room to post and share around 4,000 standard resolution photos.” And the option to upgrade, starting at $25 per year, is still available to those who need more space.
A handful – nine, actually – of other small upgrades rounded out the overhaul. You can view them all here, if you’d like, but there’s nothing too exciting. Still, it’s good to see Google getting back into the “Web albums” game.
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