Explore Picasa's latest and greatest community shots
On Friday, Google's Picasa Web Albums rolled out a new page that highlights community photography, with featured shots from its users, a stream of live updating uploads, and a game that makes use of media that's been geotagged.
Of all the new features, the "Where in the World?" game is the most fun. It lets you guess where a photo was taken by clicking on a giant world map. You're awarded points for how close you were, with closer guesses racking up massive points. It does this using shots that have been geotagged, although that doesn't necessarily make it easier. Success in the game comes from shots that contain landmarks or language markers with local signage. If the shot doesn't have any of that, which seems to happen more often than not, you're playing with pure luck.
Picasa's new Explore section outlines some of the newest and most interesting photographs from Picasa users. (Click the image for a larger version.)
(Credit: CNET Networks)The featured photo section is also a great start but hardly the exploratory experience competitor Flickr has established for itself. There's no way to sort by date, and Google has not made it clear how the photos have ended up on the front page by hiding how many people have viewed and bookmarked each shot.
One thing missing from the equation is more ways to explore the actual users. You can still get to someone's profile with all their public shots, but there's not yet a community spotlight for interesting photographers.
The Where in the World game lets you guess where photos were taken. You're lucky if there's some sort of language or landmark...otherwise it's anyone's guess. (Click the image for a larger version.)
(Credit: CBS Interactive)
Josh Lowensohn is an associate editor for Webware.com, CNET's blog about cool and otherwise useful Web applications and services. If you've found a site you'd like profiled, shoot him an e-mail. E-mail Josh.
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