Google Adds Group Collaboration Tools To PicasaGoogle Adds Group Collaboration Tools To Picasa

Google recently added better collaboration tools to its Docs product and decided that Picasa deserved similar treatment. Now, Picasa Web Albums will support multiple contributors, making it easy to create a group album.We've probably all attended a wedding where the bride and groom place a disposable camera on each table for guests to use. It's a great way for the bride and groom to see their own wedding as experienced by their guests.

What about for company social functions? It's one thing for a social coordinator to take a lot of random shots of an event, but what happens to all the other candid shots that employees take on their own?

Google's new collaboration function on Picasa Web Albums takes picture sharing to the next level.

As long as all contributors have Picasa accounts, it is easy for one person to create an album and then give others permission to add their own pictures to it. The album creator will maintain control over contributors and can grant or rescind permissions at will. Pictures added by anyone other than the album creator will be attributed to those who added them, which lets everyone see who shared what.

Google notes that there are a few limitations, however. Pictures can't be uploaded from Google's Picasa desktop software, and those using Internet Explorer will only be able to upload five pictures at a time.

Despite these minor limitations, this is a great way to make sharing pictures more social and more fun. Now, everyone can see multiple points of view of the same event.