IMS_Blog

So the big news is Google has released Picasa Web Albums (well, it’s still “invite only” but if you have a Google account…it took them a handful of hours from request to actual invite). I have a photo album online already but this is a simple way for the average person to share pics online (where’s the fun in the simple way though ;-) Also, whilst offering some cool features, it’s still Google’s normal mishmash of table layout, non-semantic markup). I was able to very quickly and simply use Picasa to create a test albumFlickr like offerings).

Picasa itself has had a few minor tweaks, mainly the renaming of “labels” to “albums”. Hello integration seems to have been hidden into the Email option (“Picasa Mail”). However, there’s also integration with Google Earth to geotag photographs, which is nice and shows that maybe Google are working towards some sort of coherence, which has seemed a bit lacking of late (on a similar note there’s also an upload to Google video option). There’s a few more cosmetic and usability tweaks too.

Picasa Web Albums is lacking in some things. Whilst albums have the now obligatory RSS feeds there’s no search as yet, but this is only a first release, so I expect that will come (search is what Google does after all). And that first release bit is actually the most interesting thing, for Picasa Web Albums is not marked “beta”!! It’s Picasa Web Albums, Test! This could be the start of Web2.5, or something.