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Google Acquires Panoramio, Prepares Major Update for Google Earth

New company joins Google

By Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor

31st of May 2007, 07:07 GMT

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Google finally acquired Panoramio, a company that was the search giant's partner for a long time, providing high-resolution photos for Google Earth. The Spain based website has a huge database of pictures from all around the world, offering information about the geographical location

where they were captured. As you might know, Panoramio was an important Google Earth partner because it offered a considerable number of photos to the Mountain View company, all of them showing different perspectives for certain locations displayed on the map. This way, the users were able to view more details about the place. Basically, Panoramio is a website based 100 percent on its community because all the photos are uploaded by the registered members that are also mentioning the geographical location.

"Panoramio was a great fit with Google's technology, team and culture. Panoramio has been working with Google to incorporate Panoramio photos into Google Earth for some time. Although the integration is already in place and functioning, we believed a deeper relationship would add value to the Panoramio experience for our users," Google said about the acquisition.

Although the search giant's representatives refused to comment on the upcoming plans concerning Google Earth, it's quite obvious that the downloadable application will receive a major update, probably interoperability functions with the web-based service. "It's too early to say exactly how Panoramio' s technology will be integrated into Google, but our team will work to improve the experience of end users. For now, Google Earth users will continue to see Panoramio as a default layer in Google Earth," the company sustained.

For a certain period of time, Panoramio will remain the same web-based service hosting your photos but, once the migration as a Google product is started, the current registered members will have to transfer their photos to the search giant's product. There is no other alternative because Google sustained that all the photos will be deleted if a user doesn't agree to transfer the data rights to Google.

TAGS:

google | panoramio | google earth | map | satellite

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User opinions:

Comment #1 by: Peter Vrenken on 12 May 2008, 11:33 GMT

reply to this comment

What if:

Microsoft joined their efforts with Google and combined PhotoSynth with Panoramio? This would really make an astonishing application.

I think the combination of the two technologies would mean the start of a whole new era in which people will start to experience the world in a whole new manner:

Public user content of the world available through Panoramio can be used to recreate it in a digital-online setting. This would mean a way to automatically digitizing all wonders of the world (being buildings, panorama) in full picture glory. It also means other users are given the change to experience such a location in three dimensions without ever going there.

Geez, i really hope to visit some more wonders of the world this way... Ofcourse after being there in person :-)

What's you're opinion?

Greetings,

Peter Vrenken

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