WebProNews

Google Sites Gets New Image, Feed, and Template Features

Google has made it easier to insert Picasa Web Albums photos into Google Sites. They have added a photo option to the "insert menu." In addition, users can upload photos directly to Picasa Web Albums from within Google Sites, using the "upload photo" tab in the insert dialog. It should be noted, however, that Google Apps users will not see the options, because Picasa Web Albums is not available in Google Apps.

New Picasa Lets You Use Name Tags

Google has released a new version of its photo editing software, Picasa, for both Mac and PC. The most noteworthy new feature is the addition of name tags, which lets users organize photos based on who's in them. This uses the same technology that powers a similar feature on Picasa Web Albums.

Google Taps Photos on its Own Picasa for Street View

A while back, Google began including user photos in Google Maps that could be viewed while a user navigated through street view. These photos were drawn from Panoramio. Google has now decided to add Picasa photos into the mix. This makes perfect sense, considering Google owns Picasa.

New gPhone (myTouch 3G) Coming in Early August

T-Mobile has announced that the sucessor to it's semi-popular G1, the myTouch 3G, will become available in early August. The myTouch 3G will be extremely customizable, unlike Apple's iPhone. Users will be able to choose menus, wallpapers, icons, themes and skins. Will being customizable be enough to lure iPhone users away?

Features of the New Version of Android

Google is in the process of releasing an upgrade to its Android mobile platform in version 1.5. Google is emphasizing the ability to upload YouTube videos right from your mobile phone. Naturally, this makes it simple to record a video and upload it instantly. "What's more, YouTube gives me full control of my privacy, so I can decide if I want to make my videos available to the entire Web or just a subset of invited friends," says Android Team Product Marketing Manager Jonathan Matus.

The Google Contacts Without the Gmail

Google has recently launched a standalone contacts manager, which lets you manage your contacts outside of Gmail. This would be particularly useful for those who don't use Gmail, but use other Google products that offer sharing capabilities. If you use Google Docs, Picasa, or Google Calendar for example, you can now update people's contact information without having to use Gmail. This was not an option before.

Gmail Messages Get Richer

It appears that they never sleep at Gmail. After the most recent improvement in conversation-saving with the service, they have now added the ability to preview YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, and Yelp content with a new Gmail Labs experiment.

Google Adds Ads to Hosted News Articles

Google is now showing ads on Google News pages that show full-text articles. These are the articles which Google itself hosts. In case you're unfamiliar with these Google-hosted articles, back in 2007, Google News started offering original source content from a variety of publishers like the AP, Agence France-Presse, UK Press Association, the Canadian Press, etc. This was to give special treatment to "original sources."

Google Adds AdWords to Picasa

Google is now showing AdWords ads above search results in its photo sharing service Picasa. It's hard to imagine people being shocked by this. Google has been getting more aggressive with adding ads to its products. Only a few weeks ago, Google started adding them to Google News search results after years of not having them.

Google Unveils Picasa For Mac

Google has introduced a Mac version of its photo album application, Picasa, at Macworld in San Francisco.Google previously offered a standalone Picasa Web Albums uploader and an iPhoto plugin fro Mac users. The company says Picasa for Mac brings all of the advanced sharing and synch features of Picasa to the millions of Mac OS X users.