"The 'Views' metric allows you to see how many people have viewed a certain photo or video. Views from all sources are included: Picasa Web Albums, embedded photos (if applicable), image search, etc. The view count, updated every 24 hours, is located on the bottom-right of an individual photo or video and is visible to anyone who can see the content. The number of views for each photo or video dates back to June 30, 2009. All views before this date are not included," explains Google.
Picasa Web Albums started as a service that helped you share photos with your friends and family, but it gradually added features from community-oriented services like Flickr: search, tags, Creative Commons licensing, comment moderation.
The service was launched as an online extension of the popular photo organizer Picasa, but this was an important factor that limited its development: it's difficult to upload multiple photos if you don't use Picasa, there's no photo editing feature and the name isn't very attractive. In addition to the integration with Picasa, Google's service offers only 1 GB of free storage, a great semi-automatic face recognition feature, a simple way to geotag photos, embeddable slideshows and some nice keyboard shortcuts that save time when you browse through photos. How would you improve Picasa Web Albums?
I would improve Picasa Web Album, by reducing the cost for upgraded storage. Today, Flickr is so much cheaper with only $24.95 for unlimited storage... That is what people want, a safe place to store, share and view photos - with no limitation or fear of getting to close to the GB-limit. Picasa is a superb tool, too bad I have to use Flickr for online use and not Picasa Web Album because of the high price on upgraded storage. :)
ReplyDeleteI would very much like picasa web albums to be a complete html5 app for my ARM based netbook (no need for the desktop version of Picasa. it should be fully integrated with CromeOS of cause :). Also the social aspect could be improved, when i get a permission directly on one of my friend albums, it does not show on my picasa page, instead i get an email, or i have to favorite him and then browse to it...
ReplyDeleteI would change the name. That's the only reason I don't use it. It should be in line with everything else, Google Photos or something.
ReplyDeleteAbility to share gmail storage with Picasa - who uses all their allotment at gmail??
ReplyDeleteAlso, upload by e-mail would be useful, as would a dedicated app for iphone.
That was one of the most popular feature request?
ReplyDeletePlease focus on fixing the linux version next? Screensaver doesn't work, neither does export to facebook.
Yeah, i feel that one should have 1 file system at google. That way I could add an image from Picasa in my gmail, and see pictures received in my gmail in Picasa. Also in docs i should be able to see my pictures from Picasa :) and 1 shared pool of storage across all apps, sprinkle some gDisk on top of that and I'm ready to move to the cloud ;)
ReplyDeleteThe unified "file system" is coming and it's called Google Web Drive (code name Cosmo).
ReplyDeleteNot being a native english speaker, I don't understand why the name "Picasa" is wrong. Could someone explain, please?
ReplyDeleteLike a lot of people (all of them, I think) I 'd like real shared storage between Gmail and Picasa, particulary when I buy extra storage ! There would'nt be any separation between Gmail and Picasa.
ReplyDeleteI 'd like to see a link in my Gmail contacts to photos tagged with this contact. And also that G.Calendar show me the birthday I put for my Gmail contacts !!!
More storage, both free and paid. I could fill up 20gb fairly quickly with raw photos.
ReplyDeleteThe URL of one's album:
ReplyDeletehttp://picasaweb.google.com/Username
is too long! something like:
http://Username.gphotos.com/
would be great.
One small improvement to Picasa Web Albums: allow user to select the album URLs. If my album name contains accented characters, say "Niños México", the album URL becomes an ugly "NiOsMXico". Worse, if I want to change the title of the album, the URL changes too, so any previously-sent URLs will fail.
ReplyDeleteIdeally, make it like Google Sites where the album title would suggest an URL, but the user can override the URL to whatever they prefer.
More storage for sure! Microsoft's Skydrive gives 25 GBs of free storage for anything (photos, music, files, etc.
ReplyDeleteAlso would be nice to be able to contact the Picasa contributors like in Flickr. Can't find an email address anywhere in Picasa for the contributors.
I'd like an uploader for the BlackBerry. When the Storm was coming out, that was supposed to be one of the initial "big" apps, but it never happened. I also agree with the comments about storage space. My GMail quota is currently over 7GB! It would be nice if the Picasa storage slowly grew like the GMail quota does. If Google has the capacity to continually grow disk space, why don't they do that for all of their services? I understand that selling space for Picasa must be a revenue stream for them, but 1GB seems much too small anymore.
ReplyDelete@Cookie:
ReplyDeleteWhat about http://photos.google.com/username ?
I like Cookie's idea too. The URL is really long and not that convenient for sharing with friends. Alex, your suggestion is good.
ReplyDeleteAlso, more file storage, like everyone else said!
I wonder when the stats counting started.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how you got 4974 hits. It appears that even my family members don't look at my photos. Surely they're not that bad!
It appears the stats (gphoto:viewCount) are only within the feed URL for each photo. The album feed does not contain this entry. You cannot see which photos are popular without checking each individual photo.
I wonder where Google is going with this - or is this it?? Clearly Analytics is far better - and Blogger supports it. YouTube too has much better statistics.
@xo:
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion works right now, since photos.google.com redirects to picasaweb.google.com. Picasa Web will become a part of Google's online storage service and the free storage will probably increase. I suspect that GDrive will launch in the next months, before Google Chrome OS is released.
Alex Chitu > "I suspect that GDrive will launch in the next months"
ReplyDeleteyeah yeah yeah... and did you suspect that years ago, when everybody talk about an imminent lauch ? The teasing with html tags in some gg websites ?
We believe in facts ! GDrive is not there, so we talk about reality.
@Alex:
ReplyDeleteJust because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there. There are so many references* to GDrive in Google's services that it's very unlikely to be far away.
* Recent references:
1. Picasa for Mac
2. Internal Google document
3. Google Pack's code
4. Google Docs includes many references to "cosmo", GDrive's codename
I'm a paying fan and I'd like two features. One, I'd like a tuning option to control Exposure so I can take hot pictures down (like Lightroom does). And second, I'd like the web Picasa facial tagging to get synced with my desktop photos. I don't know if possible, but it would be nice if the facial tags would also follow when I upload pictures to Facebook.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping/betting that Picasa will get better and better on rendering photo's with the best of the competitors.
For me, the Picasa turned me into a paying customer of Google.
Thank you Picasa team!
Just ordered a 10GB extra storage (allowed 1GB already eaten by Blogger pics) for 20$/year. Could be cheaper, indeed.
ReplyDeleteAlex Chitu > An "unlimitted" storage by Google (this already exist with other compagnies than Google :) ) will come, for sure. I just say that this is a "feature" that we are talking from 2006, with evidences every 6 months. So, we have to be carreful when we talk about a lauching...
ReplyDeleteFor exemple, Google offer the same storage for Picasa (1GB) since 2007/2008 :(. Microsoft and Flick offer much more.
ReplyDeleteAnd the new igoogle, announced 1 year ago, has just been lauched today (for me).
So, just to say that a new product is lauched... when it is ;-).
And Gmail gadget for igoogle STILL not support https :o !! That's just :-(((.
As many above have stated, if I were to switch to google for storing and sharing pictures it would have to have a reasonably priced unlimited pictures option. Until then I will continue with my premium flickr account.
ReplyDeleteCute bear! :)
ReplyDelete- call it google pics or google photos
ReplyDelete- let me know if someone tags me (based on my email)
- let me approve/dismiss this tag
- give me access to the pics from all google services
- get rid of the desktop app by improving the webservice (step by step)
- let me geotag/tag other ppls pics / let the owner approve/dismiss
- give more statistics...
-> win
Showing the view count is nice, but doesn't seem terribly useful, at least not without the ability to get a list of most popular (this week/all time) photos/albums. Best of course would be integration with Google Analytics!
ReplyDeleteDon't like the view count. Shows how unpopular my photos are.
ReplyDeleteLove the view count - shows what's being viewed v what's not
ReplyDeleteTo have possibility to have the same picture in different albums (but not copied as it is today). This would provide different views on the same content with more flexible access control.
ReplyDeleteAccording to this (http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=154009), the view count dates back to June 30, 2009. So maybe our photos are not that unpopular after all.
ReplyDeleteok, I would realy like to see a better Folder management system in Picasa. For example, I have 8 or 9 folders with various sports events... right now they are completely mixed up with my other 210 folders!! Why can't I have a multi-tier system, like in my PC? A general folder for "Sports" and inside this folder (OR LABEL!!!) I could put all my sports-related folders...
ReplyDeleteBRING US LABELS OR BETTER FOLDERS GOOGLE!!
ALEX
Thanks for adding the view counter. It's much appreciated. Like some other folks here, I'll like to see some hierarchy in the albums.
ReplyDeleteDoes view count also include the number of views done by the logged in user who is the owner of the photographs ? (Ideally, it should exclude those view counts )
ReplyDeleteThanks to confirm!.
EVEN I WANT TO KNOW THIS WEATHER view count also include the number of views done by the logged in user who is the owner of the photographs ? (Ideally, it should exclude those view counts )........
ReplyDeleteany answers..plz reply...............
The one, single thing that keeps me on Flickr, as much as I'd love to switch to Picasa, is unlimited storage for only $25/year.
ReplyDeletePicasa's paltry 10GB for $20/year won't cut it for me (and many others, I suspect). I'm already well over that on Flickr. I would gladly pay Google $25/year for unlimited storage, and ditch my Flickr account. I hate the photostream centric layout. I want my Albums/Sets front and center, not the sometimes random assortment of often disjointed images I most recently uploaded (by DSLR, by cellphone, by screenshot, etc).
Make it happen Google, and welcome the flood of Flickr refugees like myself.
I would like to see Picasaweb offer folders and albums.
ReplyDeleteThat is be able to create a folder which can contain albums, much like we have on Picasa.
As of Oct 6 2009: Most of my pictures have 10 or under views. However, a series of shots in the main building of the Smithsonian in D.C. have counts in the 170's. Also shots from a car show at the Lockwood Community Center have similar, the ones of license plates. One wonders what is up with that, peculiar interests in the Picasa community or a programming bug.
ReplyDeleteI would Like to get google analytics to work with Picasa
ReplyDeleteIt's really great to see who's viewing my photos where is the more popular albums..
I like the idea of the 'view number'... but i have a qualm about it too, because it isn't accurate. The reason why i say this is because it counts 'me' as a 'viewer'... for it to be a true reading, to know the 'popularity' of the photo (as google said), 'I' shouldn't be classified in the view number of MY OWN photos... surely there is a way for an improvement in this... like, that however the program 'figures out' how many 'views' there has been for each photo, there should be a way to program it so that it 'recognizes' when it's a view from a link that was sent to others or when it's the person looking in their own album... if that makes sense... anyway... will look fwd to when there is an update in this matter!
ReplyDeleteI lost the view numbers in all of my Picasa web albums recently. It looks like they are all reset to 0 (zero) by the Picasa Webalbum software.
ReplyDeleteIs there a way to restore the actual view numbers, that are lost now?
Jacques Duivenvoorden
I don't have a counter anywhere for my photos!
ReplyDeleteIS there only a counter if you pay and upgrade to Picas +
It used to be there, but I no longer see any view counts. Please bring it back.
ReplyDeleteWhy are page views no longer showing up on picasa web albums? (or actually showing on only one album now?) I didn't set that album up any differently...I am trying to figure out how to get page views back. Please help.
ReplyDelete