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Moving on from Picasa

googlephotos.blogspot.com

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Re: Moving on from Picasa

#51

Huge pet peeve of Google... Develop a great little application/product that pulls you in and develops a decent user base only to have it disappear. I get that in a normal company, the finances might in fact dictate that the company can no longer support the user base with the revenue collected. With Google.. these free services seem to disappear with little warning. (to be fair: 4 years of not updating the official B…

Why they didnt evolve google talk into a skype clone is beyond me.

I have 20 ideas at least of cool features, but as we only have skype this type of product will stagnate.

Re: Moving on from Picasa

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Picasa web albums has hardly disappeared. It was replaced by Google Photos (then Google+ photos) a couple years ago. They left the old interface around for years to allow people to transition over at their own pace, you can't really expect a better migration path than that.

Google photos doesn't have a desktop app. Being able to sort pics on a desktop is just as important, if not moreso, as being able to sort pics on the web. Not everything needs to be, nor should be, a pure webapp.

That's kind of Google's modus operandi though, isn't it? They don't make desktop apps unless there is a distinct need for it (Google Earth, for example). They are all about the web!

Re: Moving on from Picasa

#53
post #10
post #2

like Google Reader, this was probably not a core part of their business.

Unlike Google Reader, this product was replaced with a newer (and, IMO, better) alternative, Google Photos. Albums you had in Picasa aren't gone, they're just accessible through the new UI. Why should Google maintain two competing UIs for the same product? [these opinions are my own, not necessarily those of my employer, Google]

Albums you had in Picasa aren't gone, they're just accessible through the new UI.

Well, except that some photos do not show up in Photos and only in Picasa Albums (e.g. images shared through Hangouts).

Also, Picasa had a lot more photo management features.

Re: Moving on from Picasa

#54
I feel like companies that shut a product down should release source code. Then people who still want to use it can continue development.

If the company doesn't offer it anymore, why do they need to keep the code secret?

Re: Moving on from Picasa

#55

Huge pet peeve of Google... Develop a great little application/product that pulls you in and develops a decent user base only to have it disappear. I get that in a normal company, the finances might in fact dictate that the company can no longer support the user base with the revenue collected. With Google.. these free services seem to disappear with little warning. (to be fair: 4 years of not updating the official B…

> I get that in a normal company, the finances might in fact dictate that the company can no longer support the user base with the revenue collected.

Although I never really used Picasa, Dropbox's decision to shutdown Mailbox and, to a lesser extent, Carousel, was particularly upsetting for me. Although in the case of Mailbox it was more due to a decline in acquiring new users after the buyout [1].

I'm not too bummed about it now as I've found better alternatives.

[1]: http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/8/9873268/why-dropbox-mailbo...

Re: Moving on from Picasa

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's at least two of us then. Reader is what made me swear never to rely on a Google service for anything ever again.

I still don't know how to use the Internet without Google Reader :/

https://theoldreader.com/ works for me

Re: Moving on from Picasa

#59
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's their core part? Self-driving cars?

Advertising. If it doesn't relate to advertising or have some ad revenue channel, don't expect it to stick around for long.

... but it could be. They still can serve ads there!

Re: Moving on from Picasa

#60
Every time this happens, people act surprised. Every single time. It happens like clockwork, every 3 months.

People should realize by now that Google is a company that makes money through surveillance advertising, and _every single other thing they do_ is basically part of a PR campaign.

If you don't want this to happen to you, don't use Google. Use something that you have control over.

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