Google’s Photovine : Mobile Photo Sharing

The site for Google’s new photo-related project Photovine has gone live, but the actual product or app is still missing. 

Located at photovine.com, the site currently features an image of a mobile app – interestingly, the device in the image is definitely an iPhone and not an Android device – and a short description of the upcoming product: “Photovine is a fun way to learn more about your friends, meet new people, and share your world like never before.” 

The site also contains a Privacy Policy that says, “Photovine is offered by Slide (part of Google Inc),” as well as a support page that explains some details about the project.

“Photovine is a community that’s about creating fun and unique collections of photos that we call Vines,” the support page says, explaining that 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”. Google also makes it clear that it will not tolerate just any kind of photo. “As a rule of thumb, if you wouldn’t want your family to see it, you probably shouldn’t post it,” the support page says. 

At this point it’s unclear whether this project is connected with Google’s recently launched social networking service Google+, but it seems to be an independent product. 

Recent reports indicated that Facebook is working on a photo-sharing app of its own, and in March 2011, a photo-sharing app called Color piqued a lot of interest, which seems to have largely dissipated by now. 

The Photovine app is available in Apple iTunes store and can be used on iPhones. You can click photos on your mobile and share with your friends with a particular tag. Also, users can see photos posted by their friends under the same tag.

Google said that the Photovine version 1.3 includes:
- Invite system replaced with open signup - everyone can join Photovine now!
- Crash fix for posting a photo when the feed has a timeline break
- If user adds a note to a post, include that note as the first comment
 

It seems like Google, which acquired Slide, the social-media company that developed Photovine in 2010, planning to add more features to the app. Click here to download Photovine app. Stay tuned for more updates.