Panoramio.com - Panoramic photo sharing (HQ HD)

Panoramic photo sharing by Google maps and

Panoramio.com

Panoramio is a geolocation-oriented photo sharing mashup owned by Google. Accepted photos uploaded to the site can be accessed as a layer in Google Earth and Google Maps, with new photos being added at the end of every month. The site's goal is to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by viewing the photos that other users have taken at that place. The website is available in several languages.

The headquarters of Panoramio are located in Zurich; in the office building of Google Switzerland.

History

Panoramio was started in the summer of 2005 by Joaquín Cuenca Abela and Eduardo Manchón Aguilar, two Spanish entrepreneurs. It was officially launched on 3 October 2005, and by 19 March 2007, it had archived over 1 million user submitted photographs. Three months later, on 27 June 2007, the number of photos reached two million. After a further four months, on 25 October 2007, the number of archived photos reached five million. In August 2014, the number of uploaded photos (including deleted objects) exceeded 110 million., At 14:52, 5 July 2014 (UTC), The real existing number would be 66,336,352 by using the code provided by 

As of September 2014, Panoramio was a world community of several million people and was available in 47 languages.

On 30 May 2007, Google announced plans to acquire the website, and Panoramio was acquired by Google in July 2007.

Eduardo Manchón left the company in January 2010 to focus on his new project Askaro. He was replaced by Gerard Sanz Viñas. Joaquín Cuenca left the company in May 2010.

On 16 September 2014, it was announced, that Google intends to close Panoramio and migrate it to Google Maps Views. During the migration important Panoramio features, such as "comments", "favorite photographers" and "groups" are to disappear.

On Sept. 23, 2014 Panoramio founders Joaquín Cuenca Abela, Jose Florido Conde and Eduardo Manchón Aguilar launched a petition addressed to Google for the people, and especially the Panoramio community, to sign, called "Google: Keep The Panoramio Community Alive". It requests that Google refrain from closing Panoramio. The information about the Panoramio protest and petition has quickly made headlines on international media.

Organization

Panoramio asks users to organize images using tags (a form of metadata), which allow searchers to find images concerning a certain topic such as place name or subject matter. Panoramio was also an early website to implement tag clouds, which provide access to images tagged with the most popular keywords. The website also hosts a list of world famous sites. As of February 2012, 1 million photos are uploaded to the site in about 20 days. Images that have (or are perceived to have) as their central subject people, machines, vehicles or anything within the interiors of structures, or depict public events such as fairs or concerts, are excluded from the GoogleEarth layer, as are any potentially controversial images. No waivers are granted even if the images are historical or otherwise vintage in nature, since copyright has to be held by the uploader. Images judged to be too creative or artistic in concept, such as Photoshop constructions, might also be excluded fromGoogle Earth regardless of other requirements met.

Users could create and join Google Groups. Photos could then be added to a group. This feature has been removed as part of the winding down of the site.

Panoramio had an official iPhone app, which was deprecated in June 2012. Third party developers have released a Windows Phone 7 version of Panoramio that allows users to browse through the various images posted to www.panoramio.com.

http://blog.panoramio.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panoramio