I have used Flickr for a little over a year, like many I have enjoyed the service. Recently my account came up for renewal and I decided to give Picasa a go before renewing.
After a little over a week of playing around, I am switching over to Picasa and Picasa Web. I am going to miss the “community” aspect of Flickr, but here are some of the things I really enjoy about Picasa and Picasa Web:
- Faster Servers: We all know Google is fast, very fast… faster image uploads, faster image loads, etc.
- Better User Interface: Flickr has gotten so polluted with too many links, too many distractions. Google always has taken a minimalist approach to design and layout, and it works.
- Picasa Desktop: Picasa on the desktop rocks! Plain and simple.
I’m with you, Matt.
I’ve been on Picasa for a few years now.
All in all, I think it’s considerably superior to flickr.
It free, faster, and offers tons of space.
The main thing working against it is simply its lack of popularity. The hooks to make it social networking-oriented are there; it’s just that most people are on flickr, so the community hasn’t really developed.
Just to let you know, there’s a great picasa integration plugin for iPhoto that allows you to combine the best of both worlds. And there is also a pretty sweet wordpress plugin (although I can’t tell whether your using that for this blog).