Blogger Beta Images Requiring Picasa Contract?

(Hat Tip: Google Operating System)

I don't think I could have seen this coming. It seems that users who now upload images onto Blogger Beta now have to agree to a Picasa Web Albums terms of service.

Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Picasa Web Albums. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Picasa Web Albums and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Picasa Web Albums, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, distribute and publish such Content through Picasa Web Albums, including RSS or other content feeds offered through Picasa Web Albums, and other Google services.

Users will have to agree to the terms of service, or forfeit the right to upload images to their blog. Here is a mini screen shot below:



Ironically, I was unable to agree to the terms via Firefox, as it would not let me select the option (thankfully IE was more gracious, otherwise I would have been completely out of luck).

I wonder how "legally binding" this contract is, since this refers to Picasa Web Albums and not Blogger. Either Picasa is going to host images for Beta Blogger (which may not be a good idea, especially with political/science blogs) or someone at Google was too lazy to write up a contract for Blogger Beta.

Is it me, or does this not make any sense?

Picasa And Blogger Are Dating Again

I have been waiting for this for way too long! The Blogger (in beta) team has finally courted Picasa and its nothing but love from here on out!

 

There are a few known issues that have to be resolved, which Blogger and Picasa have to work out (hopefully soon!) but here are some of the problems that they are working on.

• Errors posting from Picasa to Blogger if there are html validation problems.


• If you are signed in as a Blogger user, sign out, and then sign back in with your Google account (to post to the beta), you will receive an error. The work around is to close the window and repost from Picasa (signing in with your Google account).


• Once you post to beta, you will not receive a confirmation window. Once the rainbow progress indicator goes away in Picasa, open up your blog in your favorite browser to confirm the post.


• You cannot post from Picasa to Blogger in beta if you have backlinks turned on.

Even though the label feature does not work yet, I'll be posting from Picasa (as I am more comfortable doing it that way, at least on this weblog).

Congrats to the Google Picasa and Blogger Beta teams! Now if we can just get some API support going on, then we can put Flickr out of business Picasa back at the number one spot! :)

Note: I wonder if they will allow Hello to post to the new Blogger in Beta's? 

Picasa Makes Life Beautiful...Again

The boys and girls at Google have finally released a new (and improved) version of Picasa, allowing users to organize their photo's better as well as save image changes permanently.

(Official Google Blog) We've also fixed a whole bunch of things in Picasa. Folders finally work as you'd expect, so people who've kept their photos meticulously organized in folders and subfolders can see them displayed the same way in Picasa. And we've added a shiny new feature to photo-editing: Save. Your Picasa edits can now be preserved when using other programs. The save feature is even undoable, so you never lose your original files.

You can now use Picasa to upload photo's to Google Earth too, although if you have been using the beta for a while this is probably old news to you.

Users who have either upgraded or downloaded the latest version will probably notice the Picasa Web Album's button is "slightly glowing."



That is because now anyone can sign up for the Web Albums, although I am unsure whether or not if international users can upgrade to the pro account (as their were reports that this was not available to them).

Anyways, congrats to the Picasa Team! Now only if Blogger could release their fix for Picasa working with the new Beta Blogs (as I think helping out Flickr first was pretty much evil). ;)

Flickr Now Compatable With Blogger In Beta

The Blogger Buzz has just announced that Flickr is now compatable with the new Blogger in Beta.

 

(Blogger Buzz) I'm very pleased to announce that Flickr has added support for the new version of Blogger in beta! Now you can blog and post photos directly from Flickr to your beta blog. This is something that a ton of you have been requesting, and many thanks go to the Flickr folks for upgrading their site to work with the new version of Blogger.

While I'm excited that Flickr now works with the new Blogger in Beta, I am however waiting for Google to do something similar for Picasa Web albums (as the old blogger is giving me too many head aches and I've already manually switched some of my blogs over to the beta).

For those of you looking for any updates on Picasa, Documenting Picasa has two great posts regarding evil teddy bears and some serious linkage between the online gallaries. 

Picasa Googler Engineer Spotted?

While I was doing a recap of Google employees over on Inside Orkut, I spotted this profile.

 

I came across Andre's profile before, mainly because he was the owner of the Picasa forum on Orkut. Who would have guessed that one of Picasa's own would have started this community? (or a least take ownership of it)

The forum does not seem to be too active, although I'll list it on the sidebar and let anyone know if I find anything interesting in there. 

Google Assimiliates NevenVision (For Picasa)

Good news for Picasa users! It appears that Google has acquired NevenVision and according to the Google Blog their technology will be used to improve image search.

 

More information from the Official Google Blog:

We've been working to make Picasa (Google's free photo-organizing software) even better when it comes to searching for your own photos—to make finding them be as easy as finding stuff on the web. Luckily we've found some people who share this goal, and are excited that the Neven Vision team is now part of Google.

Neven Vision comes to Google with deep technology and expertise around automatically extracting information from a photo. It could be as simple as detecting whether or not a photo contains a person, or, one day, as complex as recognizing people, places, and objects. This technology just may make it a lot easier for you to organize and find the photos you care about.

Documenting Picasa has more info regarding the acquisition and Beta News goes into a little bit more detail about NevenVision.

Note: It looks like AOL is getting jealous of the photo social networking wars, and had decided to jump into the battle. 

Picasa Web Albums Link Within Gmail

Some of you may have noticed that Google has recently inserted a Picasa Web Albums link within Gmail.

 

For those of you unfamiliar Picasa Web Albums, its basically Google's photo social network where users can view and comment on each others pictures (and download them as well). Sort of like Flickr, except it is owned by Google instead of Yahoo.

Although this will make it easier to access your photo's while checking your email, this latest addition is a distant second to a Firefox hack by Matthew Parker (allowing users to insert photo directly from their album). 

Google Mac Attack (Picasa Web Album Uploaders)

(Hat Tip: Documenting Picasa)

The boys and girls at Picasa have (finally) started to court the Mac market by releasing the Picasa Web Album Uploader. Mac users can download the uploader over here, although you will need a Picasa Web Albums account in order for this piece of software to work.

 

More from the Google Blog:

This new download comes with two handy tools for uploading photos: There's a plug-in for uploading your pics within iPhoto. If you don't use iPhoto, or just want to upload the occasional picture, just drag your photos into the provided standalone app and click Upload. Either way, I can't wait for my fellow Mac users to showcase their talents. [...]

For me [Ted Bonkenburg, Software Engineer] this has been a great opportunity to meet and work with new people, explore new technologies, and help create something that I hope the Mac community will find useful. So, please sign up for Picasa Web Albums, download the uploaders, and show the world some beautiful photos.

Ted did this project as a part of Google's 20 percent time, (great job Ted) although I wonder if he would consider making a full blown version for Mac? 

Update: Zmarties is hosting Documenting Picasa on his own server. Please update your links (as well as your RSS feeds).

Picasa Web Albums Upgrade: Americans Only?

Note: Published on The Social Networking Weblog



There seems to be an explanation regarding the upgrade link dissappearing within users Picasa web albums, a Google network where people can upload and comment on photos.

Apparently a user in the Picasa Usernet forum contacted the Google team in order to find out what was going on and received this reply.

Hi [name removed],

Thank you for your note. At this time, you must have a United States billing address to purchase additional Picasa Web Albums storage. As such, users located outside the United States will not see the link to upgrade their storage and they may also see an error when attempting to purchase.

We appologize for the inconvenience and look forward to offering you more
options, for international purchasing, in the near future.

Regards,
The Google Team

Google's servers were probably trying to figure which users were from America and which ones were not, resulting in the upgrade link disappearing and then reappearing every time the page refreshed.

The upgrade link should be now appearing in American accounts, although it will be interesting to see if Picasa can dethrone Flickr (owned by Yahoo!) once it opens the gates to the international community. 

No Upgrade For Picasa Web Albums?

(Hat Tip: To Computers.net for providing screen shots)



Apparently that is the case according to ZDnet.com which picked this up from a Blogscope reader in the forums.

As the observant Blogoscoped readers spotted, a link that once prompted users to upgrade their 250MB Picasa Web account to 6GB has recently disappeared. Could Google be getting ready to make this upgrade free?

I am not seeing the link in my account, and others have noticed this as well. Here is a blurry screen shot of what should be at the bottom of everyone's page.



There should be a "Storage" section, with some linked text saying, "Need more space? Upgrade your storage with an additional 6 gigs!" If a user clicks on the link, they would be taken to this screen which would ask for $25 in order for one to upgrade to six gigs.



Perhaps Google is moving the Picasa Web Albums upgrade over to Google Checkout as it seems to be a more "secure feature" for the search engine giant king. Perhaps they may provide unlimited storage for a fee (have it grow like Gmail).

Either way, I hope they inform the masses soon, as this is a great way to send potential clients towards Yahoo!'s Flickr. 

Upload Photo's To Joga.com Via Picasa

(Published on The Social Networking Blog)

It seems that Orkut's cooler brother Joga.com now gives users the option of uploading photo's to their album within Joga.



This should make it easier for soccer fans (or football as it is known internationally) to show off some cool images of them scoring a goaaaaaaaalllllll!

But before you can upload a photo, you will have to first create an album within Joga, otherwise you will receive a friendly error message.



After installing Joga's version of Picasa, you will notice a button near the bottom of your Picasa screen (displayed above) as well as a little tray for you to place images on.

It looks very nice, although I wonder if the team will do something similar with Orkut? 


Update: Picasa is having trouble uploading images to blogger. I may have to use Blogger to post images here from now on...sigh.

Web Albums Are Here!

Google, via Picasa has finally released their version of online albums, entitled Picasa Web Albums which seems to be a Google version of Flickr.com, owned by Yahoo.

Both web albums software are pretty good, but Picasa allows you to upload up to 250 mb immediately while Flickr limits you to about 20 mb per calendar month.

If you upgrade to their pro account, (which costs $25 per year) Picasa bumps you up with 6 GB of space. Flickr has something similar, but you get 2 GB per calendar month to upload.

Hopefully the Picasa team will integrate Picasa Web Albums with Orkut's photo album, as that would allow users to hold more space via Orkut (and perhaps show off some digital pics). 

Update: Picasa is having trouble uploading images to blogger. I may have to use Blogger to post images here from now on...sigh.

No Love For Blogger?

 

Unfortunately it seems as if I am unable to load images to Blogger via Picasa.

After I push "publish" Picasa gives me a thumbs up, and nothing happens. The last post had to be done via Hello. Alas... 

Update: It is working via Picasa again.

What Is Picasa?

Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized.

To put it in a nutshell, Picasa is the "Google Images" of your PC. But Picasa does so much more than finding where your photos are located on your computer. Picasa allows you to not only remove the red eye out of those almost perfect prom pictures, but also allows users to "spice up" their images in a variety of ways. Whether you are an amature or the official camera czar, Picasa is fun and easy to use and can be run on almost any windows platform.

So what are you waiting for? Download Picasa now and explore a world of imagery that you've never experienced before.