PicasaWeb

I’ve never really managed to comprehend the mentality of companies like Google and Yahoo.

Google have, for quite a while, owned the Picasa desktop application. Anyone that’s used Apple’s iPhoto will appreciate the similarities between the two, but Picasa is a pretty good photo management application, that’s made all the better for being free.

Yahoo have owned Flickr for some time, which is crying out for something like Picasa. The best Flickr can come up with is their Uploadr tool – although to be fair their newly tweaked Organiser is extremely usable. Instead of focusing on improving the client side elements of Flickr, Yahoo have enhanced their own Yahoo Photo service. Why? They own Flickr, why waste time and effort on a new version of – what is essentially – a competing product.

It seems that Google have fired the first shot in a complete solution. Scratch that – Apple fired the first shot with iWeb, but I can’t comment on that as I’ve not used it. Google have launched PicasaWeb, a service that I hoped would rival Flickr but which at the moment can only be described as an also ran.

PicasaWeb is OK. It’s nothing special. It’ll allow you to put the pictures you’ve currently got in Picasa on the web. Sadly, it will also allow anyone access to them if they know the URL. I don’t like this. I want to control who can see the photos of my friends and family. Until this feature exists, PicasaWeb is useless to me.

Aside from that, Picasa disappoints in other areas. Elements of the UI feel clunky, there’s a distinct lack of the slickness present in Flickr and Yahoo’s new photo service, and it doesn’t offer any real help or assistance along the way.

PicasaWeb doesn’t compete with Flickr, Yahoo, Zoomr, Riya, and the other snazzy online photo sharing applications. I’m not entirely sure that it wants to; but if that’s the case, it’s difficult to comprehend its reason for being. I hope it’s improved soon; if some of the features offered by Flickr are implemented, I might think about moving.