I wanted to emulate the small 'album locations' map found to
the lower right of a user's Picasa Web albums homepage. This gadget
does exactly that, plotting a user's public, geotagged albums on a
Google Map. It's quite interesting as it uses aspects from many API's
inc Google Maps, Google Picasa API, Google AJAX Feeds API and of
course Google Gadgets API.

Here's a link to add it to iGoogle http://fusion.google.com/add?moduleurl=http://visitormap.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/picasaGadget.xml and here's a link to a demo and some more details about it http://bonstio.net/google-gadgets/picasa-map-gadget.html.

Feedback welcome :)

I wonder: which photo service from Google should need more focus and update? Picasa or Panoramio?
Why is it there's a need to separate these products? Picasa had its own geotagging feature, why is it Google is promoting Panoramio especially on Streetview on GMaps?

Panoramio has a different purpose: Picasa Web is mostly about people, while Panoramio is about places.

Picasa Web = uploading photos to share with your friends and family
Panoramio = explore the world using photos

Compare http://www.panoramio.com/map/#lt=48.856667&ln=2.350987&z=4&k=1&a=1&tab=1 with http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/view?feat=tags&psc=G&filter=1&tags=paris

Ionut, although they do have different purposes, it seems like it would be easier if they were combined. Why not upload everything to Picasa and simply be able to select which pictures are not of people? It couldn't even be automatic. Sounds googley to me!

That's my point!

The majority of photos on Picasa are not geotagged of course. I tend to geotag albums – day trips, family visits, holidays etc rather than at a per-photo level which is why I created the gadget.

However, I think merging the two into one interface – even if keeping the distinction between people and places – would be nice!