commons-app
Become the replacement for Panoramio
Panoramio was a hugely popular app to send pictures of places. The user could choose the license, and many chose an open license. It was shut down last year after it was acquired by Google in 2007.
When you look for pictures when editing a Wikipedia articles, a large proportion of the images come from Panoramio, so the closure of Panoramio is a big loss for Wikipedia.
We should strive to get former Panoramio users to use Commons rather than Google's replacement (which is not open).
Tasks (feel free to add more):
- Find former Panoramio users (please post below if you are one) and ask them what they miss from Panoramio.
- Get the word out that Commons can be a replacement for Panoramio, highlighting the advantages over other replacements.
Background on Panoramio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panoramio
My impression was that it was popular because it was accessible directly from Google maps as its own layer, which also caused people to want to upload photos there. Is there a Google Maps equivalent that uses Commons pictures? Layer for Openstreetmap or something?
Seeing that (unreferenced) histogram, it seems that Panoramio's popularity started 8 months before Google acquisition: http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/10861303.jpg And it did not grow that much after Google's acquisition (only doubled in terms of upload rate): http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/29520652.jpg
@janpio
Panoramio pictures were visible by default in Google Earth in February 2007, it seems: http://blog.panoramio.com/2007/02/photos-from-panoramio-updated-in-google.html
http://mashable.com/2007/05/30/google-panoramio/#RIuTAZwB_kqu (written in May 2007) says that Panoramio integrates Google Maps (as seen in their screenshot), but if the reverse was true they would probably have talked about it.
Search query with dates filter: https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=Panoramio+google+maps&client=ubuntu&hs=swB&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F2006%2Ccd_max%3A31%2F7%2F2007&tbm=
Ok, here is the feature that I remembered in Maps: https://youtu.be/_qX4S4jl-BE?t=100 (May 2008)
Here is a Leaflet Maps based site that "copied" lots of the Panoramio pictures: https://mapsights.com/ (Copyright situation is unclear, seems they are "only" linking to Panoramio right now but also wrote about "downloading" the pictures when Google shuts down Panoramio - the photographers are not happy)
My proposal https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T143884 (for the Wikipedia app) went in this direction.
You cannot "replace" Panoramio because Panoramio's space is now taken by Google Maps and Google Photo, which trick users into submitting their own photos wherever they are for Google (and Google only) to use in its products. Google bought Panoramio and then gradually killed it, just like they removed the Wikimedia Commons layer from Google Maps at some point. http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Panoramio
To attack Google's monopoly in this space you need users to understand that Google takes their rights away and that they have an alternative to do what they ostensibly care about (share and document certain places) while having some hope for visibility (thanks to copyleft and attribution). You need to send this message and provide this experience from some application they already find useful for other reasons (like OsmAnd, which added Mapillary, or the Wikipedia app).
Indeed integrating with the Wikipedia app or OsmAnd is a great idea. I just created https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/1273 in that vein.
By the way, keeping track of our non-open competitor: "Local Guides shared over 300 million photos on Google Maps this year" https://www.facebook.com/pg/GoogleLocalGuides/photos/?tab=album&album_id=932251783592781
It looks like the above issue 1273 that was created, as a result of this ticket, has been closed. Do we still need this ticket to be open, or can it be closed?
Chris.
