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[Picasa web albums live!]

NateDawg [PersonRank 10]

Wednesday, June 14, 2006
18 years ago31,507 views

Picasa web albums is up and live and accepted limited testers.
I entered my name and it said my account was ready.

http://picasaweb.google.com/

NateDawg [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

http://picasa.google.com/web/user_faq.html

NateDawg [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

:-(only 250 megs of space it seems for now

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

"You'll need an invitation before signing into Picasa Web Albums. If you enter your Gmail username below we'll send you an invitation first-come, first-served. Thanks for using Picasa!"

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

It redirected me to lh2.google.com. One of Tony's mystery services solved...

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

"Congratulations! Your Picasa Web Albums account is ready!"

...sweet :)_

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

"adjust your privacy settings (you can always change these later). "

this is a great feature...

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

hmm, very ungooglelike- only 250MB free and you have to pay $25 / year to get more storage (6GB of it)

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

ooh purchases.google.com has a list of all my transactions now, did it before?

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

/pd, where are you seeing the privacy settings thing?

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

interesting...they have a monitzation effort at the back end..

" Picasa gives users the convenience of ordering prints and products directly from some of the web’s most popular photo processing providers including Kodak EasyShare Gallery, Lifepics, Ritz Camera, Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Walmart.com. "

http://picasa.google.com/help/shopping_policy.html

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

ooh sorry for the repeated posting, but in the new picasa, go tools > experimental. Cool stuff. also just look through the menus, lots of newish stuff

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I cut my album.. for public consumption

http://picasaweb.google.com/slash.pd/Testv10

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

"Send an email link to this album" –

does not work by mouse scroll, – use the arrow keys for this!

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

the ordering prints thing has been around for a while. it works quite well, i've used it.

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

the url changes during the slideshow to reflect a permalink to each picture – sweet! here's an example with /pd's album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/slash.pd/Testv10/photo#s4940306086900924434

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

yes, this is berry berry sweet.. flickr killer!!

I only wish zoom in is more granular and finer. It only permits @1:1.75X zoom.
or is just my eyes.. :)-

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

click the magnifying glass in the upper right hand corner of the photo view and it zooms a lot so you have to drag around to see the whole photo.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

this is bestest functions... take a look at the tools available..

I linked blogged straight here

http://peterdawson.blogspot.com/2006/06/piscasa-testv10.html

This image is grayed out using option#1 from this screen I posted here

http://peterdawson.typepad.com/photos/naked_conversations_toron/picascb11.html

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I am getting "500 INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR" :(-

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

WTFFFFFFFFF..!!

I got thrown out!! Is anyone else there using this ?? I can't get on again!!

NateDawg [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

just got the "We're sorry, but this service is temporarily unavailable. We're currently working to fix the problem." message. seems kinda early for this kind of speed bump.

NateDawg [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

back up!:-)

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Al services are down. my links are not working..

Caleb : could you reconfirm visuals ?

I could only fingerprint remaing on this exceise is here

http://peterdawson.typepad.com/photos/naked_conversations_toron/picascb11.html

The rest of "public" album is gone into limbo ..whatever... its way over my bed time :(_

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I'm still in... funny that this was JUST NOW posted to digg... usually they're all over this stuff.
http://digg.com/technology/Picasa_Web_Album_launched

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

==>>/pd, where are you seeing the privacy settings thing?

I dunno .. :)- ... I just picked it up and pasted.. If I digg.. I am sure we'll find it :)-

oh btw..the other thing I did was post on my link blog.
http://peterdawson.blogspot.com/2006/06/piscasa-testv10.html
notice the icon of picasa alongside.. its a trackback to the service

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I the thin client has a lot of failure points.. dont hit "Im feeling lucky"!!

here the stupidness captured!! :)_

http://peterdawson.typepad.com/photos/naked_conversations_toron/picascb12.html

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

this Desktop UI also has hooks into GEarth and Google Video!!!

Tools => Geotags [ View with Gearth, etc etc..]
Tools =>experimental => [Upload google Video]

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

i'm feeling lucky is working fine for me...

and what did you mean by "reconfirm visuals"?

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

wow, i was watching my status bar and it was talking to lh[x].google.com where x varied from 1 to 8 seemingly randomly. so apparently the lh2 thing isn't just a naming convention (cl2, etc) it's some sort of server designation

Josue R. [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

$25 per year, i'll pay up ... but i just hope that all of GDrive is free.

Ken Kuhl [PersonRank 7]

18 years ago #

I'm in and it looks great so far...

But, again with the "Set Google as my default search engine in Internet Explorer" check box.

http://home.kenkuhl.com/misc/picassa-default.jpg

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I think the reason they're always trying to change your default search engine is because it genuinely is very difficult to do in internet explorer. and i think if it wasn't checked, people would ignore it; so many people just keep clicking next. (i'm not saying I agree with the practice; i think NOTHING should be default checked, but that I see Google's point of view on it). At least they're not shoving thier toolbar in your face all the time like Yahoo does.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

it also has rss..

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/rssAlbum?uname=slash.pd&aid=4940305361257758737

Ken Kuhl [PersonRank 7]

18 years ago #

I certainly like being able to add an additional 'user name' (in settings) so that your gallery URL doesn't have to be the same as your gmail user name.

Josue R. [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Ken: your right about that, not exposing your real gmail address. i changed my username to something else and found that you're only allowed up to 5 custom URL's (including gmail address) but also noticed that there is no option to remove added URL's – Google should change this soon to allow us to remove or change existing usernames, hopefully.

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Hate to be cynical, but i think the only reason they let you add additional usernames is so you can't get 250 MB off each one...would also explain the fact that you can't remove them.

or [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Interesting – you can Geotag your pictures in Google Earth, automatically creating a KML file with no need to know programming. I could see people sharing picture tours using Picaso and KML, and sharing the link via Google Maps. They should make this feature more obvious – it could take off. Google is doing some innovating stuff here. For once I can really be excited.

Ken Kuhl [PersonRank 7]

18 years ago #

Josue: Thanks for pointing out the username limit. I had already added 2, but will be careful about adding more since there is no remove option (at least yet).

Now... a real drawback to my using Google's Picasa web albums is the fact that I've already got 600+ photos in Flickr all titled, described, tagged and organized into 'sets.'

So here's the big question: will Google offer an 'import from Flickr' function? I don't think it would be very hard to do technically, but it would certainly come across as a direct assault on Yahoo!/Flickr. Does Google want to appear that aggressive, or would that fall under "Don't be evil"?

or [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Well, i think some people are going to slam this for not having comments and tags.

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

it does have comments

or [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Where? I don't see it

or [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I'm also sure somebody is going to point out that you can't search...oh, I just pointed that out.

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

> Where? I don't see it

not looking very hard then ;) it's right below the picture, where one would expect....

Wouter Schut [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Just like I predicted! You can upload abums ánd you can upload video's to google video :P.

http://www.seweso.com/blog/2005/12/google-predictions.php#8

http://www.seweso.com/blog/2005/12/google-predictions.php#12

Sweet!

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I thought about it some more and the 250MB limit seems reasonable. One reason they're able to offer so much space in gmail is because they *know* lots of people won't use it. And, in fact, if you try to upload too much to gmail too fast, you usually get kicked out for a while. Furthermore, i'd forgotten that flickr actually limits you to 200 photos while web albums is more like 1000 photos.

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Just reading through the comments on digg...a very warm response from a usually skeptical crowd. I'm impressed. Looks like google has done it again.

Only 250 MB? Give me ads and 2 gigs! [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Hmm Flicker killer ? Think not!

Give us 2 Gig and it kills everything out there.
I don't care about ads . Dynamic ads that be generated on keywords, album names, fotonames and comments is a option to make money for the storage.

A Iphoto plugin would be so cool. Picas and Iphoto as tools and Picasa Web for Ad income for google

  

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Flickr only lets you have 200 photos, 250MB is about 1000.

And i checked out yahoo photos b/c they offer unlimited storage, and unless they're hiding the option really well, I cant figure out how to view my photos at anything larger than 480x480, a major step back from the old yahoo photos and a major step down from google's default 1600x1600. Plus thier layout stinks (and breaks for me in bon echo) and they have graphical ads.

toml [PersonRank 6]

18 years ago #

i want to pay for 6 gig but is only avaible in US. How can i pay other way for this. I'm from poland

dpneal [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Since the server address or internal name for this project is lh2. Could this still mean that it is the 'lighthouse' project? Massive storage, to share items? Integration with other Google tools. I think it could be.

I think the free storage limit will go up too, like gmails did, eventually turning to free unlimited storage.

Will there be google talk integrated here? look at the profile pictures, they are the same as in google talk.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

> It redirected me to lh2.google.com. One of Tony's mystery services solved...

So it was nothing to do with "LightHouse" then! Red herring or what!?!

One down, several more to go...

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

> look at the profile pictures, they are the same as in google talk.

ahh, but I was actually rather disappointed to learn that it didn't pull my pic from gtalk or let me crop my chosen pic like gmail does.

dpneal [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Why is this not Lighthouse Tony? What if Lighthouse was the internal project name for Picasa Web Albums?

Yeah I was disappointed by that too Caleb. Hopefully they'll add it in the future. If they added Google talk it would make Picasaweb a bit like the Hello software.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

>What if Lighthouse was the internal project name for Picasa Web Albums?

Good point – maybe this is Lighthouse afterall!

On reading Garrett's original post about the leaked notes again, this would make sense actually...

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/index.php?p=121

"With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc). We already have efforts in this direction in terms of GDrive, GDS, Lighthouse, but all of them face bandwidth and storage constraints today."

iZeitgeist [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Picasa Web Albums: $25/year for 6 GB,

Flickr Pro: $24.95/year unlimited storage,

Flickr had their pro offer way before they get acquired by Y!.

Where is all the tagging, social community, search and web 2.0 stuff ? You can't even mass upload w/o the Picasa Soft! Flickr had all this for years already.

Picasa Web Albums = nice looking web 1.0 photo service ?

Google! Come on... we expect more from you!!!

I just don't get it!

iZeitgeist [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Dan,

>> I think the free storage limit will go up too, like gmails did, eventually turning to free unlimited storage.

I think NOT since they are charging $25 for only 6 GB more.

What will happen then to the people who paid for more storage when they unleach their unlimited storage ? Unless they do it in a year period from now I can't see that happening!

iZeitgeist [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

....

It seems to me like they are trying to reinvente the wheel, and they will fail at that!

Everybody loves Flickr, Zooomr, Bubbleshare and so one! Why try to come up with a new style of photo sharing/community site.

Plus Picasa Web Album is a long and cheesy name; they could have launched hello.com as their photo service with some Flickr like functions, Ajaxish mass upload and navigation, mashups with Google Maps (work ou the G Maps overlays they just released), 1 GB free and $20 for unlimited storage.

That, would have killed Flickr!

iZeitgeist [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Philipp, thanks for correcting the thread's title! (I was going to suggest that, but wanted to wait and see...)

Now that you've done the first step just go ahead and make it first capital letters and w/o the brakets

Picasa Web Album Live!

I am sure NateDawg won't mind at all ;-)

Hermon [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

yap.
by written, before week-
http://israblog.nana.co.il/blogread.asp?blog=213241&blogcode=4167665
and philip, zdnet and alex.

iZeitgeist [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Can anyone tell me what's the added value that PWA brings over other competitors ?

orli yakuel [PersonRank 8]

18 years ago #

"The available free storage is 250 MB, which isn’t quite what we’re expected from the likes of Gmail.."

Agree!

I'm sure Google can do better than that and I hope they will change this option soon.

iZeitgeist [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Philipp, what I am trying to say is:

If only Google launched a photo site like Flickr, Zooomr, Bubbleshare, and so on (everybody loves photo sites the way/style they are). Why are they are trying to reinvente the wheel. Why NOT just come up with a Flickr-like, but BETTER! I think they are trying too hard to come up with something that already exist . Just improve it, don't reinvente it!

And by improve it I mean:

Launch hello.com with some Flickr like functions, Ajaxish mass upload and navigation, mashups with Google Maps, 1 GB free ($20 for unlimited is fine)

I think Google just downgraded technology here:

- Need of software for mass upload
- No web 2.0 feature whatsoever
- A less attractive commercial offer than competition

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I updated your comment Zeitgeist!

Hermon [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Philipp Where Hermon here?
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-06-14-n55.html?
You forget me?:(

Reto Meier [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Philipp – In reference to your article: you don't have to use Picasa to upload images, the functionality to do it straight from the webpage is already available.

('Upload images' first hyperlink on the 'Album View' page on the bottom left)

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

so is everyone having fun ?? I sent out share / invites whatever they were called to some members here lat night.

Can you confirm that feature works ?

orli yakuel [PersonRank 8]

18 years ago #

Philipp, Thats a great review of Picasa web. Well done.

I hope Google will connect Gmail and PicasaWeb soon and than maybe we could be upload pictures on GPweb and send them over the Gmail with one click. (an option from every new mail that we send, will be nice).

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Thanks Orli, and thanks Reto, I'll update the review with that info.

In the tradition of other forum threads you can submit the thread URL for feedback here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=feedback&submit=Continue

Wouter Schut [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

You are all looking at this the wrong way. It is called *Picasa* web albums. It is an extension for Picasa and not so much a stand-alone product. It might become something more solid, it might even be incorporated into something else (gmail, gdrive, etc.).

The potential is huge, simplified geomapping, google maps etc.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Hermon, you've been added to the credits list.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Wouter you are right, at the moment it feels like an extension to Picasa, but Google should focus on doing this right as opposed to releasing a second similar photo sharing community in the future, which would cannibalize their efforts in what looks to be in important market for their mission (organizing information). I think they should get rid of the name Picasa and call this Google Photos at photos.google.com or something.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

"Hello is a new program from Picasa that lets you instantly send dozens of pictures to your friends and talk about them."

Is this part of the distro ? It requires a seperate download!!

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Hello is an old IM program from Picasa that lets you instantly send dozens of pictures to your friends and talk about them. In fact, it's so old that no one cares about it.

John [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I think this product is a little bit premature. It can be improved as discussed above.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Hmmm. The web upload doesn't allow you to upload PNG images. I think they should...

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

whats the point of having tags when I can't search for tag function ??

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

[Edit: Added a sentence that "the site is easy to use" after playing around with it more. I prefer the usability to Flickr so far, except for the missing search.]

John [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

"Google’s desktop software, however, which is often compared to iPhoto, is too much of an excellent product not to woo new users, and it will back up Web Albums and cause a lot of users to use Picasa and the web service. " It is also google' s forte rather than flickr' s.

Dint [PersonRank 2]

18 years ago #

"You'll need an invitation before signing into Picasa Web Albums. If you enter your Gmail username below we'll send you an invitation first-come, first-served. Thanks for using Picasa!"

No invite from Google yet. =(But as stated before, you'd really expect more storage space from Google. Maybe it'll increase later when more people sign up, just like Gmail. But looking at some of the public albums and screenshots, it looks pretty good to me.

The RSS option sounds very good to me too, it should make integrating albums/photos from Picasa Web Albums a piece of cake.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Wonder if there's the possibility to create shared (community) albums?

Carl [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

No invite for me either yet... waiting patiently :) but from what I have seen it looks great for sharing photos with friends & family ...less so if you want to be part of a community – google does not seem to be too concerned about creating communities ala flickr .. which is a shame really ... and no search function ? It does not make sense for something that comes from google .. but its beta – sorry test :) so its early days yet ..

orli yakuel [PersonRank 8]

18 years ago #

Didn't see that possibility but what an Awesome idea Philipp!

BTW, I love playing with that, cool features!

Here some of my screenshots:
http://go2web2.blogspot.com/2006/06/google-picasa-web-albums-screenshots.html

Dint [PersonRank 2]

18 years ago #

Btw, is it possible to create password protected albums?
And why is Google suddenly using Test instead of Beta? =P

Sam Davyson [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Grr. I have been asleep. Stab in the dark: Did anyone enter my email address?

dpneal [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

lol, no sorry Sam. We should have a big list of our emails that the people enter when a new google service becomes available

Sam Davyson [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Ok. Some thoughts from the outside:

-- The should definately drop the Picasa name and I am pretty confident they will do this. Google doesn't mind name changes (Local/Maps Print/Books).

-- Although you can make your pictures public there is no central public hub aggregating photos from everyone. This is very unlike Flickr, more like Photobucket. I think this will probably increase people's confidence it uploading photos, but it will mean it is not a very good replacement for Flickr. Perhaps this will change.

-- Slideshow is poor. The controls stay on top of your photos.

-- Like Picasa you can't add titles to your photos. This is silly. No comments either at the moment. I am not sure if "labels" are imported from Picasa but I can't see this from the outside.

-- Why isn't Philipp's picture his Gmail picture?! There should at least be the option to allow this to happen.

-- The UI whilst not terrible, is not great. The magnofoed view is pretty nice though.

-- Picasa has a search. Lack of search here is silly.

Questions:

-- Can you delete photos?

Sam Davyson [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

By the way I HATE the way this is only available to Gmailers. I am a Gmailer but so what. Not keeping services open is a big error.

Sam Davyson [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

The naming is very bad. Now we have:

-- Beta products.
-- Labs products.
-- Labs limited test products.
-- Test products.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

yes it has delete options

Haochi [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

This will be the next Google thing that changes our everyday life, as Flickr does.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Dint:
> And why is Google suddenly using Test instead of Beta? =P

Maybe there's 3 religions within Google; the Beta guys, the Labs guys, and the Test guys. That is why there is no search box in Google Spreadsheets, because Google Web Search once belonged to the "Beta" group, and Spreadsheets belongs to the "Labs" group. Moving right along... :D

Sam
> Why isn't Philipp's picture his Gmail picture?!

Yep, that's annoying. It seemed to have worked in Google Talk integration into Gmail, this time they didn't pull it off.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

> – Can you delete photos?

Yes, there's a "delete this photo" link on photo pages. A JavaScript confirmation box then pops up and finally you'll see "Photo deleted" in an orange rounded rectangle, similar to what Gmail is doing when you delete spam or so. There should be an undo function tho...

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

But how will it change our everyday life ??

!) There is 'community' methods for sahring
2) Search is not avialable
3) Tag search is not available
4) Not fully intergrate with gmail
.....

As such, other then RSS , which btw is std for any app in todays world, is geotag's.

Mahlon [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Seems like the real innovation here is the speed. Flip through images as big as your desktop as if they were local. Can't do that on Flickr.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Hmm. Non-public doesn't seem to mean "private". It just means unlisted. I just made this album "private" (well, unlisted), and it seems to be public – can you all see this?
http://picasaweb.google.com/philipp.lenssen/JustATest

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

(PS: Carlos pointed this out to me in an email.)

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

> can you all see this?

Yep – or at least I can.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

... and it even says at the top:

Philipp Lenssen’s Public Gallery » Just a test

;-)

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Bad Google. When I check my albums, it says "unlisted" in orange next to "Just a test". That's the setting I chose, too. And when I click on "my public gallery," the "just a test" album is missing.

So, basically with the knowledge of a Gmail address as well as typical album names like "test" or "private", some Picasaweb users will be in for a surprise and find their pics spied into now?

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I added a new album called private. As opposed to the last test, this one actually never was listed as "Public".
http://picasaweb.google.com/philipp.lenssen/Private

Google still doesn't seem to care and makes this public, except to the URL, which albeit excluded in robots.txt might appear as plain link even in Google search results.

If that's Google's idea of easy sharing of URLs with friends, they should adjust their naming convention. Something like "public, but unlisted (semi-private)" or so.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Side-note... Google displays two different 404 sometimes when you play around with user names. Adrian Graham is the Google Picasa guy:

http://picasaweb.google.com/adrian.graham Adrian Graham
http://picasaweb.google.com/adrian.grahamx Adrian GrahamX

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Only supports JPEG? Uh? It should at least support TIFF and PNG (for screenshots) as well.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

And here is Sergey Brin's page:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sergey.brin

Larry Page on the other hand has no public albums:
http://picasaweb.google.com/larry.page

.... however as it seems you can now append folder names and check for unlisted albums....?

/pd [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

===> added a new album called private

its seems theres not such thing as "private" its either listed /or unlisted.

Sam Davyson [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Pretty significant that they are charging I think. Unexpected too.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

> its seems theres not such thing as "private" its either listed /or unlisted.

Yeah but what's the opposite of "public"? For example, Larry Page's Picasa homepage reads: "This user has no Public Albums."
Wrong!

I snooped around and found this album, and it's totally public, except that it's hard to find:
http://picasaweb.google.com/larry.page/UntitledAlbum

TB [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Long time reader, first time poster. :)

Perhaps Google is wanting to test their basic functionality and get some limited user imput? If this were considered complete and ready for the general public, it wouldn't be a test and wouldn't be limited to just Gmail accounts.

Some recent tests have been limited to Gmail account holders such as Google Page. Others, such as Spreadsheet, have been more widely available. I assume as they are limiting the availabilty of Googe Albums a bit more, there is more work they plan on doing.

I am pleased with some of the enhancements to Picasa itself. I am suprised no one has commented on the new option to display your folder list just like it appears on your computer, complete with nested sub folders. Not having that option has driven me nuts to this point with Picasa. I know tagging supposedly eliminates the need for folders, but I still like them.

I wish they would make the Tags a little more accessible in Picasa. So far they are a menu or keyboard shortcut. There should be a button to click. I also don't see a way to display tags. I would like the option to display Tags along with Captions. Overall, I think what we have in Web Albums in Picasa is a good first step.

Tony

Bob Aman [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Honestly, I'm not a fan of the switch away from Atom feeds. Bad move.

Koronadal [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I can see it Philipp – a face of someone I don't know. :-)

Photricity [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Hopefully Google's intention is to show web album results in google image search.

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

As a start this feature is not too bad either.

But sure it can improve a lot.

What I like a lot are the experimental things. I did mention before that a search feature would be great in which pictures can be searched for on certain properties of that picture. The experimental thing is already a great start. It should be integrated in the web application too now.

The geo stuff seems to me great too but I'm not that experienced in this kind of matter.

John [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

>Hopefully Google's intention is to show web album results in google image search.--Photricity
Why?A private album is better than that. Furthermore, you can also move some of your pics into the public area.

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I've posted this thread to Google Picasa suggestion form. Let's hope again that they provide some feedback...

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

For those complaining about the controls on the slideshow: leave your mouse still for a few seconds and they go away

Dint [PersonRank 2]

18 years ago #

"You've been invited to create web albums using Picasa"
Got it, yay! =D

InsaneNinja [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

theres a security bug, relating to picasa and firefox, that i'm first going to report to google

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Well InsaneNinja, as we all use both, what should we care about?

InsaneNinja [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Seeing as your all the ones using picasaweb, your the ones at risk, but i guess it will be fixed in a matter of hours anyway...

I click "web albums" on the new Picasa program, while logged into another name on firefox, and this screen comes up.

---------------------------

You are trying to access LH2 with the following Google Account:
   Username1[put at-character here]gmail.com

However, you are already logged in with a different Google Account:
   Username2[put at-character here]gmail.com

You can either cancel this request, or switch to a new Google Account to access LH2.

[Switch Accounts] [Cancel]

---------------------------

No password entry, full access to gmail and other services.

No idea if this works with IE as well.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Has anyone noticed this already? When you go to "Settings" – http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/settings – under "What is your Public Gallery URL?" you can click the "Want to add a new Google username?" link to add another username to your account. It says:

<< Create a new username and change your URL.
Once you create a new Google username you will be directed back to the Web Albums Settings page where you can select your new username to be your URL. >>

I tried adding some of my existing usernames in there, but that didn't work, so I made one up and it added it as an option. After changing to that option, not only could you view my photos on both URLs, but that username also now appears as "taken" when you try to registered it as a Gmail account.

Since there's no password associated with the username, you can't even login as that user – so the sole purpose for that username is for your Picasa Web Albums Public Gallery URL.

Isn't that a bit weird? I don't know if there's a limit to the number of "Google usernames" you can add to your account, but it's a bit of a waste to just use up Google usernames like that – I mean, they don't even let you do that in Gmail! (Trying to send an email to the new username gets a "No such user" error message returned.)

InsaneNinja [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

-Tony

i fully agree, they should prepend created names with a google "illegal character", such as an underscore

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Philipp Lenssen said earlier:

> Side-note... Google displays two different 404 sometimes
> when you play around with user names. Adrian Graham
> is the Google Picasa guy:
>
> picasaweb.google.com/adrian.gr ... Adrian Graham
> picasaweb.google.com/adrian.gr ... Adrian GrahamX

And what I've said above seems to be the reason behind this. If the username exists as a username linked to Picasa, you get the standard "Not Found – Error 404" error. However, if the gallery never even existed, you get Google's more colorful "404 NOT_FOUND: Unable to process request." error.

My usual username:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tonyruscoe

An additional username I've selected as my Public Gallery URL:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tonyruscoe2

Another additional username I've created but haven't got selected:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tonyruscoe3

Another username that doesn't exist:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tonyruscoe4

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Tony: it seems like real security amateurs. What should we think of that? Nice research BTW, you too Ninja...

Andrew Hitchcock [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Philipp,

I added you as a favorite. Then you uploaded the unlisted test album, which appears in my Recent Activity pane. This makes it even easier to find unlisted albums:

http://andrewhitchcock.org/images/picasarecentactivity.png

Dan Cousar [PersonRank 2]

18 years ago #

One downside that I usaully get from all new Google products is that they are gmail accounts only. Not all Google Accounts end with @gmail.com such as mine. So this is a downside as I hate switching back and forth between different accounts when my main one is not ending with @gmail.com :(

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

> I added you as a favorite. Then you
> uploaded the unlisted test album, which
> appears in my Recent Activity pane. This
   makes it even easier to find unlisted albums:

I had the "Just a test" album public before I made it unlisted. However, my album named "private" was always unlisted (of course, it's nothing really private, just a test). Does it show in your activity pane as well?

David Hetfield [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

[moved from new thread. -Philipp]

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/v/1b37/img/lh.jpg

Picasa Web Albums TEST?

what happen to Beta?!
Google is trying new names to theyre products? first, Google Labs, now Test?:/

OReO [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Yes, this is quite strange. What's the point behind that?

Caleb E [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I think they don't want to imply picasa is a beta, only that they're "test"ing a new feature of it

Mrrix32 [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

>Does it show in your activity pane as well?
Yes it shows on mine. So if anyone adds you as a favorite they can see ALL your albums

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Isn't it a bit weird that they're passing messages around using the query string?

i.e. http://picasaweb.google.com/home?msg=Check%20out%20Google%20Blogoscoped%20for%20the%20latest%20udpates%20on%20Google%21

Click the link and read the message at the top of the page.

(No harm done really. At least HTML injection doesn't work...)

Sam Davyson [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

That is a bit odd. I have finally got access to the service, and I have mixed feelings overall. It is not too good right now, but I think it has the potential to be pretty nice. Upload times are brilliant.

Mrrix32 [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

>Isn't it a bit weird that they're passing messages around using the query string?

Lycos (e-mail atleast) does the same thing. I made my sister think the site was giving a personalised error message, even though it wasn't logged in.

Havn't seen it from google before though

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

> Isn't it a bit weird that they're passing messages
> around using the query string?

That's bad for Google to allow this. While you can't inject HTML you can create misleading "system alerts" like this one:
http://picasaweb.google.com/home?msg=Please%20send%20your%20password%20to%20hackerAtNicedomainbutspamOrg%20to%20reactivate%20your%20account

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

I got invited, but I run Linux. It gave me the strangest login: a box with two prompts: "Login to LH2" then on the next line "Login to Picasa Web Albums" then the usual email/password boxes.

When I logged in it told me that only Windows was supported, but would I like to continue anyway? I clicked "Yes", then it allowed me to browse my disk to identify the images to upload (I don't have Picasa installed).

When I clicked "OK" to upload the images, nothing happened. I guess we will see upload-from-disk working without needing Picasa at some stage.

TB [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Ron,

You don't need Picasa now to upload. From Google's Help page:"

"I don't have Picasa. Are there any other ways to upload photos into my Picasa Web Albums?

Although this feature is designed and optimized for easy web upload via Picasa, you can also upload photos into a web album using your browser. Just follow these steps:

Visit picasaweb.google.com and click "New Album" or select the album you want to upload photos. You will need to logged in.
Click "Upload Photos" on the left side of the page. If you're using Microsoft Internet Explorer, this will open an HTML upload control that lets you upload multiple photos at once. The first time you use this feature, you'll need to install the Active X plug-in when prompted. If you're not using IE, you will still be able to upload photos individually.
Click "Add Photos..."
Select the photos you want to upload and click "Upload."

Andrew Hitchcock [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Philipp, I can't see the private album. Could it have been made before I favorited you, or did you make it after the test?

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

My "private" album (actually, only "unlisted") is here, I made it after the "Just a test" album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/philipp.lenssen/Private

Andrew Hitchcock [PersonRank 10]

18 years ago #

Okay, that one didn't show up.

Dock Hoilman [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I noted that in your blog article you stated . . .

"Another feature is that you can order prints from photos through providers such as Kodak or Walmart."

I have searched and searched . . . would you mind pointing that out?

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I think that was meant for the client soft. There is a big button down right: Order prints... (It is not meant for the web version I think.)

Dock Hoilman [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Yeah, that is a bummer . . . in order for me to share with my daughter (who has yucky dial-up) she has to download the pics to Picasa, then order and upload them again. Of course, photo-quality pics are about 2MB each! Hopefully, they will add the prints feature to the web soon . . . it would be great business!

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

You could make Google a suggestion through
http://picasaweb.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=feedback&submit=Continue

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