Panoramio was a
geo-located tagging,
photo sharing
Image sharing, or photo sharing, is the publishing or transfer of digital photos online. Image sharing websites offer services such as uploading, hosting, managing and sharing of photos (publicly or privately). This function is provided through ...
mashup active between 2005 and 2016. Photos uploaded to the site were accessible as a layer in
Google Earth
Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...
and
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...
. The site's goal was to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by viewing the photos that other users had taken at that location. Panoramio was acquired by
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
in 2007. In 2009 the website was among 1000 most popular websites worldwide.
Panoramio was launched in 2005, and closed on November 4, 2016, although the layer in Google Earth was available until January 2018. Image source URLs are still available.
After the acquisition of Panoramio by Google, the headquarters were located in Zurich, in the office building of Google Switzerland, but subsequently were moved to
Mountain View, California, US.
History
![Joaquín Cuenca - Eduardo Manchón](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Joaqu%C3%ADn_Cuenca_-_Eduardo_Manch%C3%B3n.jpg)
Panoramio was started in the summer of 2005 by
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
entrepreneurs Joaquín Cuenca Abela and Eduardo Manchón Aguilar. It was officially launched on October 3, 2005, and by March 19, 2007 it had archived over 1 million user submitted photographs. Three months later, on June 27, 2007 the number of photos reached two million. After a further four months, on October 25, 2007 the number of archived photos reached five million.
In October 2006
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
began approaches to acquire the company, but these were rebuffed. However, on May 30, 2007 Google announced plans to acquire the website, and it was acquired by Google in July 2007.
Manchón left the company in January 2010 to focus on a new project. He was replaced by Gerard Sanz Viñas. Cuenca left the company in May 2010.
In May 2015 the number of uploaded photos (including deleted objects) exceeded 120 million. By October 8, 2016, 94,370,531 photos had been uploaded by 4,159,004 users, resulting in a total of 75,640,891,592 image views.
Further developments
On September 16, 2014, Google announced that it intended to close Panoramio and migrate it to Google Maps Views. During the migration, features such as comments, favorite photographers and groups would disappear.
On September 23, 2014, Panoramio's founders launched a petition entitled "Google: Keep The Panoramio Community Alive", requesting that Google refrain from closing Panoramio. It received 10,512 supporters. On June 2, 2015, Google announced that it would continue to operate Panoramio until a better solution could be developed. The announcement, by Google's James Therrien, stated:
On January 30, 2016 another petition was launched by Stuart Smith, a Panoramio user from Australia, to request Google to maintain the site. It received over 1,500 supporters. Despite the continuing popularity of the site and both petition, Google announced on October 5, 2016 that they had decided to close Panoramio on November 4, 2016. Users were able to access their photos in Panoramio for a year, but were unable to add new photos, likes, or comments.
Closure
On 4 November 2016, Google removed all user facilities from the site apart from the ability to delete photos, connect/disconnect with Google+, and delete an account. Google said it left uploaded images on display for 12 months before Panoramio was completely retired.
All other user facilities were removed on 4 November.
Organization
![Panoramio - strona uzytkownika 656563](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Panoramio_-_strona_uzytkownika_656563.jpg)
Panoramio asked users to organize images using
tags (a form of
metadata
Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
), which allow searchers to find images concerning a certain topic such as
place name
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road name
** Often ...
or subject matter. Panoramio was also an early website to implement
tag cloud
A tag cloud (also known as a word cloud, wordle or weighted list in visual design) is a visual representation of text data, which is often used to depict keyword metadata on websites, or to visualize free form text. Tags are usually single word ...
s, which provided access to images tagged with the most popular keywords. The website also hosted a list of world-famous sites. , 1 million photos were uploaded to the site in about 20 days.
Images that had (or were perceived to have had) as their central subject people, machines, vehicles or anything within the interiors of structures, or depict public events such as fairs or concerts, were excluded from the Google Earth layer, as were any potentially controversial images. No waivers were granted even if the images were historical or otherwise vintage in nature, since copyright had to be held by the uploader. Images judged to be too creative or artistic in concept, such as
Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...
constructions, were also excluded from
Google Earth
Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...
regardless of other requirements met. However a pervasive problem was thousands of misplaced photos, typically manifested by cities and towns seemingly located in the oceans, which required action on the part of the photographer before anything could be done.
Users could create and join
Google Groups
Google Groups is a service from Google that provides discussion groups for people sharing common interests. The Groups service also provides a gateway to Usenet newsgroups via a shared user interface.
Google Groups became operational in February ...
. Photos could then be added to a group. This feature was removed as part of the winding down of the site.
Others
Panoramio had an official
iPhone app, which was deprecated in June 2012. Third party developers released a
Windows Phone
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design la ...
7 version of Panoramio that allowed users to browse through the various images posted to www.panoramio.com.
In response to the announcement that Panoramio would shut down, the photo-sharing service
Mapillary
Mapillary is a service for sharing crowdsourced geotagged photos, developed by remote company Mapillary AB, based in Malmö, Sweden. Mapillary was launched in 2013 and acquired by Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) in 2020. This is one of the ...
set up a process for transferring one's Panoramio pictures to their service.
Data published in Panoramio has been used by scientists, local and governmental authorities as a proxy for the evaluation of aesthetic values, the appreciation of different landscape types and identifying hotspots – most often photographed objects, etc.
See also
*
Landscape photography
Landscape photography shows the spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes ...
References
External links
*
{{use mdy dates, date=November 2016
Image-sharing websites
American photography websites
Computer-related introductions in 2005
Internet properties established in 2005
Internet properties disestablished in 2016
Google acquisitions
Defunct websites
2007 mergers and acquisitions
Google Maps