Here is a picture:

We all know Google said they will be placing more ads in more places. So this is just the latest Google property to show ads.

Google had a Picasa Web Albums uploader and an iPhoto plugin for Mac users but never the application.

The Wired Blog has a nice walk through the of many features available in Picasa. Below I will also embed a video demonstration of Picasa for Mac.

As many of you know, I am a long time Mac user. I personally have been using iPhoto with Flickr. I plan on giving Picasa a try, since it won’t really impact my iPhoto or Flickr albums. I am particularly eager to try the name tagging feature, amongst other features – but I am sure it will take a lot to move me off Flickr and onto Picasa completely.

More coverage on this release can be found at Techmeme.

Postscript: A few hours later, I check out some of the live coverage of MacWorld and I see Apple has added tons of features, including the face recognition feature I was looking for in Picasa, to iPhoto. So maybe I won’t bother switching or testing Picasa.

Here’s a look at the two announcements:

Flickr’s “Mobile Makeover”

With visits to Flickr’s mobile site (m.flickr.com) up more than 50% in the past year, the mobile site now shares much of the same features and functionality that Flickr users are familiar with on the main site.

The Yahoo announcement trumpets the new video playback capabilities on Flickr mobile, but many users will be happier with the improved navigation. Your user home page (below left) sports quick links to see recent activity on your own photos, photos from your contacts, and the most interesting photos uploaded to Flickr. An individual photo page (below right) shows thumbnails of the adjacent photos in your account; a single tap navigates to that photo.

The video playback feature is available already for iPhone and iPod Touch users, and will be rolled out in the coming weeks for other devices that support streaming video.

For more, read Yahoo’s full announcement.

Google’s Picasa Upgrades

Google’s Picasa service is getting several upgrades:

• Sharing – Picasa users can now more easily see who they’ve shared photo albums with, and others can more easily see all the albums you’ve shared with them.
• “Sign-in required” albums – In addition to labeling photo albums as public or unlisted, a new option is “sign-in required.” This lets users share albums only with others who have a Picasa Web Albums account.
• Video playback – All videos that are 320 pixels or bigger will play back in higher-quality MPEG4 format.
• International name tags – The name tags tool is now available in 38 different languages.
• Automatic comment translation
• Improved gallery page design

For more, read the full announcement.

Picasa users will be able to label their photos with names. Google will then start to automatically suggest other photos that look similar to the ones you already named.

Mike Horowitz, Google’s Picasa product manager told News.com:

Once you’ve started naming people, we’ll start suggesting names for you based on similarity. The process of naming people is really addictive and tremendously fun.

Google’s Picasa 3.0 beta will have this feature and it is expected to launch at 3pm (EST) today. Stephen Shankland has provided a detailed review of the program, including the accuracy of the facial recognition features.

Currently Google gives you 1GB of free space for Picasa and 2.8GB of free space for Gmail. You can now buy additional space, and Google hopes to expand this service to their other services, such as Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

The current plans are: 6GB for $20.00 per year, 25GB for $75.00 per year, 100GB $250.00 per year, and 250 GB $500.00 per year.

You can purchase the additional storage over here, and you can check your current storage usage at this page. Google Blogoscoped has screen captures of what it looks like to have the premium storage, and Google Operating System shows how to pay for that storage. There is additional information on this FAQ page.

In related news, Microsoft launched their beta storage service named Live SkyDrive. Live SkyDrive allows you to store files online privately, to share with friends or to share publicly. With the launch, Microsoft added a new upgraded look and feel a new feature named “Also on SkyDrive,” thumbnail images so you can better see your files, a drag and drop feature for your files and a way to embed your files anywhere.

Michael Arrington reviews both Google and Microsoft storage solutions, saying, “Both fell flat.”