Everyone has witnessed the hype that Google attempted to raise when it released Google Plus in the middle of the rise of the social media revolution. As you have probably witnessed, Google was not entirely successful in achieving the same level of engagement that Facebook and Twitter had. In fact, the tech world has long been waiting for the social media platform to finally raise a white flag and call it quits.
You would have to admit that Google Photos was one of the key highlights of the Google Plus platform, something that Google must have also realized themselves. This is why Google Photos will finally be released as a separate app, a revamped version that will give users unlimited storage for photos and videos.
A few limits have been set however, which is not surprising at all for such an app. Photos will be limited to 16 megapixels for each image, while videos will be given a limit of 1080p. However, users will still be able to use their Google Drive storage for files with higher resolutions anyway, so it’s not really a big loss.
Google Photos will be available for Android, iOS, and web users. Google will also do what they do best by sorting all your images automatically so that they are clumped into groups. Reminiscent of Flickr’s recent update, it can group photos of landscapes and skylines together, as well as photos of people. This makes it so easy to keep track of all the photos you have and measure their relevance to your needs at specific times.
Another huge feature? Its search ability. It’s basically Google, so all you have to do is type in “swimming in Hawaii” for example, and it would show you all the water shots taken in that location.
And yes, photo sharing is also available. People you share photos to won’t even be required to download the app. Even if they haven’t downloaded and installed it yet, they will still be able to see your photos in the form of a web gallery.
Is this a smart move for Google? Definitely! This means that Google is finally making the most out of the strong points of Google Plus and will be making the lives of other apps within the photo storage niche a little bit less comfortable. After all, Google evidently knows what their strengths are, and would not even be the least bit hesitant to use them to reign supreme over the competition.
I have to say, from the start I did have a feeling that Google+ was not going to catch on. It felt superfluous. And when early features started to be canceled due to lack of use, the clock started ticking. But your post is a good reminder to us all not to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Whatever we do in life, we have to take risks, build on the good that comes of them, and move on from whatever doesn’t work. It’s not a failure. The failure is in never trying anything new at all.
Something was off with Google Plus from the beginning. Thy know this, but anything they can do to capitalize on the search engine, the more likely they are to succeed. I mean, they are the best at search – keep building on that.
One of the interesting things I heard come out of the Google This Week Podcast was that with this new photo campaign Google has developed software to replace missing photos when it recognizes a sequence of photos to create a video. For example if I took a dozen pictures of someone walking down the hall, Googles software would create those photos so the video wouldn’t be choppy and seem smooth.
The podcast also criticized Google for its failure on the Google Glasses concept that has seemed to fail. Google seems to be throwing out quite of bit of new things with the share ride being integrated in maps trying to compete with Waze in that realm. The one theme here is their expansion projects don’t seem to be taking hold. Your right they know their strengths but they are also feeling around the market and trying to find other industries to venture into.