Jul 12, 2011 07:01 GMT  ·  By

The mystery behind Photovine.com, the website registered to Google, has been solved. The site is now live and, as was expected, it's a photo sharing app, one focused on sharing your pics with the world based around common subjects, or 'vines.'

Also unsurprisingly, it's yet another project, the fourth now, from Google's Slide team.

While the site is live, it's not functional just yet, there is no way to sign up, request an invite or even add your email to a newsletter.

The site shows a photo-sharing app running on an iPhone, but there is no Photovine app in the App Store or the Android Market.

However, a couple of pages on the site provide some details on what Photovine is all about.

"In Photovine, vines connect you with people through the ideas and themes expressed in your photos," a page on the new site explains.

"A vine is like a constantly growing family of photos connected through a common caption created by you, your friends, and people all over the world," it adds.

"Start a vine by taking a photo and creating a new caption, or add to an existing vine. Other people will see your vine and join in by adding their own photo, showing their own take on the caption," the site says.

You may remember that Slide is working on yet another photo-sharing app, Pool Party, which is designed to make it easy to share photos with friends, as things happen, in real time.

Photovine is different since the emphasis is on sharing with the world, all photos are visible to everyone and the goal is to meet new people, find great photos and share experiences.

If Google has been missing out on the social web bandwagon, it's certainly making up for lost time.

Obviously, Google+ and its related projects have been getting all of the attention for the past couple of weeks, but there's been a skunkworks team at the company, pumping out social, mobile apps for the past three months or so.

Google acquired Slide last year and the team has been working very independently since, inside Google. It debuted with the Disco group messaging app, which got its third major update just a few days ago, and it continued with Pool Party, Prizes.org and now Photovine.