Image: mister_borogrove via Flickr
See Also:
Facebook’s iPhone App Store End-Around Is Exactly The Right Idea
Oracle Wants “Billions” From Google In Android Lawsuit
Here’s Google’s Secret Plan To Kill Groupon In New York And San Francisco
Google could be planning to launch a social photo-sharing service with the name Photovine.
Google got a trademark on the word “Photovine” on June 7, Fusible reports, and the filing covers three things:
- Communication services, namely, transmission of visual images and data by telecommunications networks, wireless communication networks, the Internet, information services networks and data networks
- Non-downloadable computer software
- On-line social networking services.
The domain photovine.com just switched hands as well, going from a private owner to MarkMonitor, which Google uses as the registrar for its domain names, including google.com.
A photo-sharing service could be another step in Google’s attempt to beat back Facebook while improving its search engine with social inputs.
Earlier this year, Google introduced +1 buttons that let users vote on relevant search results and interesting Web pages — they’re like Facebook “Like” buttons — and also began using +1 votes to make search results more personally relevant.
Photos are one of the most popular uses of Facebook, so it makes sense for Google to step up its offerings there.
There’s also a possible search tie-in — imagine letting Google users tag and share photos, then incorporating that information into the Image Search feature that Google introduced last Tuesday, which lets users enter images (rather than text) into the Google search box and then returns similar images from around the Web. Adding social information could make that service a lot more accurate.
The only question — what happens to Picasa Web, the photo-sharing service that Google already runs?
Article source: SAI http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/ef1LuXKBOYU/google-buys-name-photovine-for-possible-social-photos-service-2011-6