Philipp at Google Blogoscoped takes the natural next step after the search player’s Picasa acquisition and predicts what’s next for Google. One of the things I think a lot of folks have missed here is that Picasa’s Hello is basically a peer-to-peer instant messaging application that permits shared browsing of photos. (It can also easily create and send screenshots, which is interesting in a completely tangential way.)
Is this a platform Google can build into a full-fledged instant messaging application? Don’t know. I’m not that much of a techie, but it’s an interesting topic for speculation. A Google Photos (along the same lines as, but better than, Yahoo! Photos, I’d hope) is an obvious move, of course.
The forum has some interesting links on what we can expect from Picasa 2.0 — scheduled for a “summer” release.
- Exporting of pictures to CD
- Support of IPTC keywords(same link as above).
- Enhanced integration with TiVo
My favorite photo site is Snapfish.com so I would like them to integrate that site with theirs…..but it’s owned by HP now. Bummer.