Flickr vs. Google's Picasa Round 1

June 14, 2006 2:37 PM

Google's Flickr Killer?
posted by bigmusic (72 comments total)

A little late to the market to be a Flickr killer. Also, no tags, no contacts, etc. I don't think Flickr is too worried. Looks easy and simple to use, though.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:40 PM on June 14, 2006

On the web, I much prefer Flickr, but I do enjoy Picasa on my local machine. No tags, though? What, are they kidding me?
posted by everichon at 2:41 PM on June 14, 2006

I'm pretty sure that they bought the header ad space for promoting picasa on videosift.com as it has been the same advertisement for several days now. Where as previously it changed every time someone loaded the page.

This has been sort of irritating me because I have a sneaking submission that google pays less per advertisement than other advertisements, and it is smaller suggesting that people are less likely to click on it than an advertisement for Hostel, which is at least ostentatiously linked to videosift's content.

/rant

That said I can't fathom why the recent interest, their changelog suggests it hasn't been updated in a while. Although maybe their changelog is out of date.
posted by sourbrew at 2:42 PM on June 14, 2006

Google was fairly late to the search engine market too.
posted by bigmusic at 2:42 PM on June 14, 2006

no Macs either, btw.
posted by obloquy at 2:45 PM on June 14, 2006

At least Flickr works on a Mac.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:47 PM on June 14, 2006

At least Flickr works on a Mac.

Agreed. When Google stops treating Mac users like they don't exist then I'll pay attention to their IPO-funded pet projects.
posted by Mr. Six at 2:49 PM on June 14, 2006

This soda... it tastes sort of stale.
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:50 PM on June 14, 2006 [1 favorite]

So where do I go to see other people's photos? (Isn't that what Flickr is for?)
posted by smackfu at 2:56 PM on June 14, 2006

Agreed. When Google stops treating Mac users like they don't exist then I'll pay attention to their IPO-funded pet projects.

Well, when Mac users make up a larger portion of the market, I'm sure they'll speed things up on their Mac compatibility work. That being said, I think Mac compatibility will be coming right quick.
posted by eurasian at 2:57 PM on June 14, 2006

Meh, install Windows on your Mac, and you'll do just fine. As soon as Mac users stop treating themselves like an elite and protected class, we'll start paying attention to them.

This Picasa app? It's not bad, but it certainly is no flickr.
posted by boo_radley at 2:59 PM on June 14, 2006

a 6GB total limit for a *paid* account? that's 3 months of Flickr, which has a 2GB a month cap. Lame. This is more a "yahoo photos" or "msn photos" killer than anything else, it lacks pretty much everything that makes Flickr entertaining and useful.

Picasa rocks though, especially for quick-and-dirty photo touchups.
posted by dvdgee at 3:00 PM on June 14, 2006

As soon as Mac users stop treating themselves like an elite and protected class, we'll start paying attention to them.

It is perhaps a sad state of affairs in computing when it has become "elitist" to ask for a working program.
posted by Mr. Six at 3:02 PM on June 14, 2006

Between iPhoto, flickr, and the plugin that connects them, I'm not sure what niche is left to fill on the Mac.
posted by smackfu at 3:02 PM on June 14, 2006

Yeah, I'm not impressed. And I'm pretty happy with flickr.

This isn't 1999 where google can stand out from the crowd just by not jamming obnoxious advertising down everyone's throats.

On the other hand, it would be convenient to actually edit your photo albums offline so that you don't have to re-download your own thumbnails every time you wanted to do something.

But I don't really care that much, really. I have one or two sets on flickr and I don't really need any more.
posted by delmoi at 3:04 PM on June 14, 2006

Between iPhoto, flickr, and the plugin that connects them, I'm not sure what niche is left to fill on the Mac.

Yeah that's true, why would google spend time developing software to compete with Apple on the mac?
posted by delmoi at 3:05 PM on June 14, 2006

Maybe it's for posting the Second Life screenshots that are apparently verboten on Flickr.
posted by GuyZero at 3:09 PM on June 14, 2006

Picasa is a much better beginner photo browser than iPhoto. If google spent the time to develop for Mac, I for one would use their products.
posted by eperker at 3:14 PM on June 14, 2006

I just hope this prevent my mother from emailing me all her photos. She started using Picasa, which resizes and emails the photos at the touch of a button, and my life got a little better--no more 1280 x 768 images in my inbox. Now if they replace that button with a "resize, post to Picasa albums, email the link" button that would be fantastic!
posted by Squid Voltaire at 3:19 PM on June 14, 2006

Well, when Mac users make up a larger portion of the market, I'm sure they'll speed things up on their Mac compatibility work.

Three words: Picasa for Linux. (I have it, and use it.)
posted by raysmj at 3:20 PM on June 14, 2006

On the whole Mac/PC thing, aren't the latest apple ads a peice of shit? It's like listening to mac-nerd misinformation from 1990.
posted by Artw at 3:22 PM on June 14, 2006

On the whole Mac/PC thing, aren't the latest apple ads a peice of shit? It's like listening to mac-nerd misinformation from 1990.


Hahaha, no kidding. "PCs are so hard to use out of the box!!!" please. Or claiming that PCs "Crash" a lot?

That said the spyware problem on PCs is huge. Bleh. It seems to be getting a little better, though.
posted by delmoi at 3:28 PM on June 14, 2006

Is it true that all macs run on "smug"?
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 3:29 PM on June 14, 2006 [1 favorite]

I've been playing with it and while it lacks a few things, it is dead simple and the integration with picasa makes it super handy for quick and dirty sharing of photos. It won't replace flickr, but it definitely will come in handy when sharing photos with family and friends, allowing me to avoid tainting my flickr pool.

I don't think they're trying to compete with flickr. At least not with this iteration. But they have made something that even your mom can use, which is a good thing, I think.
posted by shoepal at 3:30 PM on June 14, 2006

...and that mac laptops only work in Starbucks?
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 3:30 PM on June 14, 2006 [1 favorite]

...and that mac laptops only work in Starbucks?

No, they work anywhere, but you need to use the Black Turtleneck dongle. Support for the Black Rimmed Glasses dongle will be coming in the next version of iFashion.
posted by Jairus at 3:39 PM on June 14, 2006

Does anyone have a link to a public gallery?
posted by smackfu at 3:39 PM on June 14, 2006

http://picasaweb.google.com/tester
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 3:47 PM on June 14, 2006

Doh... http://picasaweb.google.com/tester
posted by mr.curmudgeon at 3:47 PM on June 14, 2006

Is it true that all macs run on "smug"?

Nope, but all macs do run on time.
posted by Mr. Six at 3:48 PM on June 14, 2006

Artw writes "On the whole Mac/PC thing, aren't the latest apple ads a peice of shit? It's like listening to mac-nerd misinformation from 1990."

Dude, I don't think you want to go there.
posted by mullingitover at 3:49 PM on June 14, 2006

Google has excess ad inventory, and they need a place to put it all. That's why they write 1,000,000 un-promoted apps that never leave beta. They're hoping that one of them will take off, giving them a reason to actually develop it. Right now, though, it's just about eyballs, eyeballs, eyeballs.
posted by Afroblanco at 3:50 PM on June 14, 2006

Also, can I pre-emptively MeTa the inevitable Mac/PC debate? We haven't had a useless, utterly pointless, childish good, wholesome, invigorating Mac/PC debate in a while. Maybe we should MeTa this so ya'll can blow off steam without affecting this thread.
posted by Afroblanco at 3:53 PM on June 14, 2006

Thanks mr.curmudgeon.

I'm very impressed by the quickness of switching between photos. I guess they are using Ajaxy kind of things to swap out the divs, and preloading them. I only wish Flickr worked that fast.
posted by smackfu at 3:55 PM on June 14, 2006

For those of you who missed the FPP, this is the place for a Flickr vs. Google flame war, not a Mac vs. PC flame war. If you're going to act like a twelve year old, at least make sure you're doing it in the right context.

Picasa is certainly much faster than Flickr, but I wonder how that will hold up as they add the features they'll need to really compete.
posted by scottreynen at 4:04 PM on June 14, 2006

It'd be a Flickr killr, wouldn't it?

I mean, if it were a killr. Or killer.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:14 PM on June 14, 2006

(getting tired of how so many FPPs metastasize into a Mac vs PC death spiral...)
posted by marvin at 4:19 PM on June 14, 2006

a 6GB total limit for a *paid* account? that's 3 months of Flickr, which has a 2GB a month cap.

I'm not sure I follow. Flickr has a 2GB transfer limit, or storage limit? There's no mention (at least, not in the link) to Google's transfer limit for their accounts. What you get (if I'm reading that right) is 6GB of storage space.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:26 PM on June 14, 2006

Flickr offers 2GB of transfer per month (with a Pro account). There is no storage space limitation -- unlike what Google is offering here.
posted by neckro23 at 4:38 PM on June 14, 2006

The answer to your question is: no.
posted by blacklite at 5:04 PM on June 14, 2006

I'm waiting for the day I actually sit down at my PC (or Mac) and look at photos for more than 30 seconds, then I'll feel like there is actually a use for all these digital cameras and photo and video sharing sites, besides giving disk drive makers revenue growth. The world needs more bad amateur photography like it needs more amateur video producers. If you aren't showing breasts or guys skateboarding off roofs or shit blowing up, whats the point?

*removes tongue from cheek*
posted by sfts2 at 5:49 PM on June 14, 2006 [1 favorite]

yep, sorry for not being clearer on the limitations

Flickr: You can upload 2GB a month, forever, with no upper limit, as long as you're paid up.

Picasa: You can upload 6GB, total. Until they realize that's completely unrealistic for a photo site.
posted by dvdgee at 6:35 PM on June 14, 2006

fuck flickr
posted by 29 at 6:47 PM on June 14, 2006 [1 favorite]

That's helpful.
posted by crawl at 6:53 PM on June 14, 2006

You need to have Picasa locally installed, which isn't such a bad thing -- it's a nice little app -- but it seems an arbitrary and unwise limitation. More lock-in strategy in action, I suppose.

I don't even use my Flickr account since my digital camera when kablooie (*cries*), but if I buy a new camera, I'll stay with them. Google increasingly frightens me, and I think their web apps (gmail aside, and I draw a distinction which I realize is fuzzy and poorly-defined between 'application' and 'site' -- to me gmail is the former, Google News (for example) the latter) are almost without exception badly designed and clunky.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:15 PM on June 14, 2006

Using Picasa as a photo uploader is a significant plus over Flickr's uploader app, which sucks on PC and on Mac. Flickr's seems to freeze up once every 5 uses.

I'm not saying the overall service is an improvement over Flickr, but Flickr still has room for improvement.
posted by aburd at 7:52 PM on June 14, 2006

aburd, as far as the Mac side, Flickr Export is a terrific uploader, as long as you're using iPhoto. It's just about all I ever use, and I think Flickr's uploader would probably be fine on the rare occasion I would need to upload something I messed with in Photoshop or whatever. This may, of course, be different for people who do a lot of retouching, but for my average-ish needs, it's fine.
posted by lackutrol at 8:23 PM on June 14, 2006

I dunno, they don't seem to be as anti-pic dump as Flickr is.

Every morning I wake up in a cold sweat, worried that my collection of Wound Man images, comic book panels, and the six photos I actually did take will be deleted and locked for abusing Flickr's TOS.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:29 PM on June 14, 2006

They don't delete non-photos. They just remove them from certain areas of the site, that they only want to have photos.
posted by smackfu at 8:50 PM on June 14, 2006

certainly much faster than flickr
posted by cmacleod at 9:01 PM on June 14, 2006

It is perhaps a sad state of affairs in computing when it has become "elitist" to ask for a working program

It's a sad state of affairs when you only hold 3.5% of the OS market and you think you get to dictate software development terms to the other 96.5%.

That's really sad.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 9:34 PM on June 14, 2006

I'm always amazing at how quickly [INSERT HOT TOPIC SOFTWARE HERE] VS [INSERT COMPETITIVE CHALLENGE TO IT HERE] devolves into mac vs pc, useful vs useless, fuck you vs fuck you.
posted by smallerdemon at 9:35 PM on June 14, 2006

Metafilter: You think you get to dictate software development terms to the other 96.5%
posted by Mr. Six at 10:08 PM on June 14, 2006

Why is it that every time a new product that comes out that is competing with other products is dubbed a "killer?" For example, iPod Killer, etc. In reading the above comments people are saying that Google was late to the search engine market etc..well yes but the web was also in a transition at that point and a decent search engine was really there, therefore they took that gap. But when talking about Flickr, I don't feel they did anything wrong, look at the thousands of videos YouTube has, I used to see lots of embedded Google Vidoes, not anymore it appears the whole net has gone YouTube. So why would people switch from Flickr to Picasa Web? Doesn't really make any sense really.
posted by willlangford at 10:13 PM on June 14, 2006

Wow. Does anyone put photos on their own web page anymore? heh.
posted by drstein at 10:22 PM on June 14, 2006

Earlier today I was messing with the 'email to flickr' thing on picasa, and I said 'Gee, I'm surprised there isn't a google-flickr'. In my head it was really sweet.
250mb (free) is not sweet.
posted by ackeber at 10:32 PM on June 14, 2006

Any body tried Flock?. A new browser with pretty tight integration with Flickr? (I'm using it to post this now)
posted by marvin at 10:38 PM on June 14, 2006

I haven't tried Flock yet but it looks friggin sweet. Thanks for that, marvin.
posted by hellphish at 11:11 PM on June 14, 2006

Another users public page, found via a comment on the tester's page.
posted by bigmusic at 11:34 PM on June 14, 2006

Have any MeFites been able to sign up for this? I'd really appreciate an invite if you have one...
posted by QueSeraSera at 12:18 AM on June 15, 2006

Damn google for not fully supporting Opera........
posted by inigo2 at 5:56 AM on June 15, 2006

Oh, and I don't have invites, but if you put your address in their "sign up to try" form on this page, you'll maybe get one. (I put my email on yesterday morning, and got an invite last night.)
posted by inigo2 at 5:57 AM on June 15, 2006

(Last post, I promise.) For those of you looking for invites, looks like you have to go through google for now:

"How do I invite friends to try Picasa Web Albums?

In the near future, we'll enable you to invite friends and family to try Picasa Web Albums. In the meantime, your friends and family can enter their Gmail address in the sign-up box at http://picasaweb.google.com"
posted by inigo2 at 6:08 AM on June 15, 2006

Damn google for not fully supporting Opera........

LOL - This thread was worth it after all!
posted by Blip at 6:21 AM on June 15, 2006

I always find Flickr to be ridiculously slow and the interface slightly clunky (although improving). I welcome this development.
posted by grouse at 6:29 AM on June 15, 2006

I knew that was coming ever since Google bought Picasa several years ago, and I wrote photi.ca anyway. I always seem to be late to the party for webapp world domination, but despite trying all the photo hosts I could find, I still didn't find one I liked so I made my own and keep tweaking it to fit. I'm stubborn like that.

Give photi.ca a try, guys. Feedback always welcome (except the feedback that goes "why did you do this? there's flickr!"). Previously posted to projects, too.

That said, it is slick how Google uses their (essentially free) bandwidth to preload set images so stepping through them is very fast (although .mac does that too, it's not as well done as here). Everything else about it is pretty std.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:50 AM on June 15, 2006

Picasa has a long way to go before it can be considered a real Web2.0 force. For one, it has way too many vowels in its name. And while there are a few 'TEST' brands on the screenshot, there's nothing to say that Picasa is in indefinite beta or something.

But hey, it looks nice, and once they make some enhancements and find an appropriately blobby logo, they'll be golden.
posted by Spatch at 6:57 AM on June 15, 2006

Google has lost it. It's just another 'me too' project. How can anyone be so blind and release anything less brilliant then the market leader flickr?
posted by homodigitalis at 9:31 AM on June 15, 2006

Google has lost it. It's just another 'me too' project.

This isn't the only thing Google has done recently. Two of their new sites are actually pretty useful and seemingly original. One is their new Shakespear site, with the complete works hosted and searchable, and the other is a nice page on US Government happenings that offers news on the subject and an easy way search government webpages for forms and other crap.

Picasa's entry into the Photo Sharing game is completely underwhelming, but Google is still pumping out great products.
posted by aburd at 11:19 AM on June 15, 2006

Flickr has nothing to be afriad of.

And as far as mom's ease of use - My mom uses flickr, just fine! I bought her her own pro account so she doens't have to learn to FTP and junk (also ironically why I built her a geeklog site)... she's a happy girl I tell ya. I'm happier becaue I dont have to handle the pissy phone calls to figure out what she's done and why "it doens't work" anymore. (she has never got that the filepath needs to be the same on both local and remote files... and it always takes ten minutes of me getting her to listen as she makes Marge Simpson sounds...)

Google has some good ideas most of the time, but this time they didn't do it first, or better. Me too indeed.

You know there is a service for ya, webpages for moms...
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 11:54 AM on June 15, 2006

Why are so many people concerned so much about Mac and the stereotype of Mac users to completely derail the topic?

I think Google may be starting to spread themselves a little thin. Their profits on these services is their advertising. They are trying to open as many services as possible to get more ads out there and it may hurt them in the long run.

That being said, I think they are the first advertising agency that has such a strong brand name.
posted by nickerbocker at 7:54 PM on June 15, 2006

They're the advertising agency and the magazine the ads are in. Nice work if you can get it.
posted by smackfu at 8:50 PM on June 15, 2006