Picasa Gains Mapping Features, Goes Mobile
Google’s Picasa photo sharing site has finally added mapping support. The new features allow users to see a small map in the sidebar for each photo that has latitude and longitude data associated with it.
Adding your geodata is a drag-and-drop process and in a nice touch entire albums can be dropped on a location rather than having to set each photo individually. The Picasa desktop client also supports adding image geodata via Google Earth.
Most other photo hosting services (Flickr comes to mind) have offered similar support for ages, but now Picasa users don’t have to feel left out. Plus Picasa boasts a couple of new features that Flickr lacks.
First there’s a integration with Google Earth which can turn Google Earth into a photo browser. Another nice touch is that in the main Picasa maps view, rather than simple pins to mark each photo, Picasa displays a small thumbnail of the image.
But the highlight of the new mapping features is the combination of maps and slideshows. If you select a photo in the map and click on “play”, the slideshow will move around the map according to each photo’s locations.
If you’d like to see the slideshow in action, the Picasa team has posted a test gallery.
Picasa has also announced a new mobile version of the site.
[via the Google Blog]
