Google is shutting down yet another service that a lot of folks may not use, but for those who do, the news is as equally sad as the Google Reader shutdown announcement three years ago. On February 13th, Google announced that it will be “moving on” from Picasa in less than three months. As a replacement, Google is encouraging Picasa users to move to Google Photos instead.
Picasa is comprised of the Picasa desktop application as well as Picasa Web Albums. Though the desktop application has been ignored by Google for a while now, it did issue occasional bug fixes plus minor feature updates, like the ability to easily upload Picasa photos on the desktop directly to Google Photos. Google will cease support for Picasa desktop as soon as March 15th 2016. It should continue to work until future OS updates break compatibility to the software.
As for Picasa Web Albums as well as its Data API, Google will stop supporting them on May 1st 2016. After that date, users can only view photos on Picasa Web, and developers will lose API functions.
On why Google is shutting down Picasa, it said it is “in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos. We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products”.
While that is a valid point, this redundancy is created by Google in the first place. Google acquired Picasa back in July 2004 from Lifescape, and has been offering the desktop application and the web albums as a free service. Since Google+ Photos and later Google Photos were introduced, the line between these services are blurred, as you can view the same collection of photos on Picasa Web Albums as you can on Google Photos. To retire the Web Albums portion is fine, but I think Google should continue to support the desktop application. Killing off a brand that’s not doing well, doesn’t mean the new product will. Just look at Google TV which Google decided to rebrand to Android TV; the latter is still not doing too hot either.
In any case, all photos and videos in Picasa Web Albums will be moved to Google Photos following the shutdown. It you don’t want to use Google Photos, Google said that it will create “a new place for you to access your Picasa Web Albums data” where you can view, download, or delete your photos. You should be automatically redirected to this “new place” if you try to access https://picasaweb.google.com/ after May 1st 2016.
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