Panoramio

Your best

2012-02-02T06:10:00.000-08:00

Someone told me that the difference between a good photographer and a bad photographer is that the good photographer just takes many more bad photos.

When I go on a photo shooting, I take lots of photos. Many of them are worth sharing, but with time only some of them bring me back to the day where I was skiing alone in Davos in the middle of a storm and the clouds just cleared out to show the best light and shadows I have ever experienced in the mountains. Or the day when small crystals were reflecting the light in the best freezing morning. Or the day I was shooting a moon rise in San Francisco from the best possible location and a zeppelin crossed the Transamerican building

Those are the my best moments and from today Panoramio allows me to display them accordingly.

By classifying your photos as best, visitors to your Panoramio page will directly see the photos you care about the most and best being a global tag that will allow the whole Panoramio Community to built the best map with the best photos from each of us.

You can get started in two ways:

Use the “Mark as best” button

We have added a “Mark as best” button under each photo in your Panoramio account. If you click on the button, we will generate a tag best and assign it to that photo. This button is only visible to you when you are Signed In to Panoramio.

Use the tagging functionality
If you already have a best tag, your photos will already be classified as best photos.
If you do not have a best tag, you can create one or click on the “Mark as best” and we will create it for you.

best photos will become your default presentation to others in Panoramio, but other users will obviously be able to visit all your photos by visiting the link all photos:

If you want to opt out from this feature and have all photos as your main point of entry to Panoramio it is as simple as not using the tag best.

We cannot wait to see all the amazing content we will be able to curate as a community so start using the feature today and as always send us your feedback so we can keep improving Panoramio for you.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Easy and fast: The new Panoramio photo uploader

2012-01-19T08:44:00.000-08:00

Do you dream of a day when you can get started mapping and editing the titles, tags and comments for your photos while they’re being uploaded instead of waiting for all images to be imported? Have you ever wanted a mapping interface that would enable you to easily map all your photos on a single map, with an intuitive and modern design? Or would you like the ability to easily upload your photos from Picasa Web Albums and Google+ into Panoramio, and see them featured in the “Photos” layer of Google Earth, Google Maps, and other Google properties?

Today the Panoramio team is announcing a new uploader tool that makes all these things possible. This new uploader makes importing your favorite pictures into Panoramio faster than ever. Now you can easily tag and add titles and comments while your photos are uploading - all at the same time. In addition, viewing your photos on the map will help you remember where they were taken, and sharing them through Panoramio will enable visitors all over the world to enjoy your shots!

Panoramio photo uploader: Photo picker where importing from Picasa or Google+

Panoramio photo uploader: Editing title and adding tags or comments while photos are uploading.

Panoramio photo uploader: New map view enables you to drag and drop your photos to the location they were taken.

When designing this new uploader, our goal was to make the process of sharing photos as seamless as possible for our millions of users. Let us know what you think of the new tool in the Panoramio Forum or visit our Help Center to learn more about uploading photos to Panoramio.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest: New Categories

2012-01-06T07:05:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2012!

We just released the result of the November Geotagged Photo Contest. The quality of the photos is astonishing. I could not resist comparing the photo from David Fontanelli with our Panoramio logo and I had to really think for a while how Miro Sabo managed to be at 7a.m. at Flue to take this amazing shot of the Matterhorn. I think he stayed in the hut that is located 10min from where he took the photo, but that is only my guess ;)

Since the contest was launched in March of 2008, the categories never changed and we thought it would be a good time for to change that, so I am announcing now that the Panoramio Geotagged Contest will have new categories monthly. We started this month with:

Landscapes: Show the beauty of nature from a wide perspective.
Detailed nature: Animals, plants, trees... Show the nature in detail.
Skylines: Skylines are the fingerprints of cities. Each of them is unique and can be captured in many different ways.
Human Constructions: Churches, buildings, roads... Show the world that humans have build.

When you upload a picture at the beginning of the month you will be able to see the new categories for that month and you will have the whole month to try to capture 5 photos that you can submit to the contest during the whole month. Those photos will be voted the following month, and the results will be announced at the beginning of the 3rd.

Feel free to suggest new categories!

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of November 2011: Unusual Location

2012-01-06T06:32:00.000-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Unusual Location category for the Panoramio contest of November 2011.

The First Prize is for a photo taken by Karen James in the UK.

The Second Prizeis for a photo taken by www.mirosabo.com in Zermatt, Switzerland.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for November 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of November 2011: Travel

2012-01-06T06:27:00.001-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Travel category for the Panoramio contest of November 2011.

The First Prize is for a photo taken by Sabine Dollinger in Australia.

The Second Prizeis for a photo taken by José L. ESTALAYO in Spain.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for November 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of November 2011: Heritage

2012-01-06T06:24:00.001-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Heritage category for the Panoramio contest of November 2011.

The First Prize is for a photo taken by grcav in the Netherlands.

The Second Prizeis for a photo taken by Ahmet Bekir in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for November 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of November 2011: Scenery

2012-01-06T06:21:00.001-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Scenery category for the Panoramio contest of November 2011.

The First Prize for July is for a photo taken by Sang Kim in Yosemite.

The Second Prize for July is for a photo taken by Henri Bertand in France.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for November 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Looking forward 2012!

2011-12-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

This is maybe THE only message of the year where I do not accept revisions and filtering. This is the message where I think about what we did over the year, the people I met and the things we have achieved.

The first message is a big THANKS to everyone for being with us once more, and the second a sorry for the long message ;)

This year has been a difficult one as we invested lots of effort in improving our infrastructure. This brings some benefits, but also some difficulties. The difficulties come when your users think you are not investing in the product or working at all, while in reality you're so busy you hardly get any sleep. The benefits come in the longer term, and I am extremely excited to announce that we are now technically in a very comfortable position that will allow us to deliver many great things in 2012. We have some key features ready to ship in the first quarter of the year, and we have a pipeline of improvements ready for the following months that we hope will excite the whole community so stay tuned for that.

While we worked on our infrastructure improvements we have also launched a bunch of features that we hope you all enjoyed:
We made easier Geotagging photos with Google Latitude
We powered our comments system with Google Translate, breaking language borders for the Panoramio Community
We made available the Photos layer from Google Maps to MapsAPI developers
A new version of the Panoramio contest was launched too. This made half of the community very happy and the other half not that much. We have listened to the feedback and we will iterate on it next year with monthly category changes and other enhancements
With the growing number of Panoramio photos we developed a new photo browsing experience in Google Earth
To allow users to join communities based on their interests, we launched Panoramio Groups

The latest change we made, which has been extremely challenging is the migration of the Panoramio phpBB forum to a forum based on Google Groups technology. It is extremely difficult to migrate a community from a discussion platform to another platform and make it right. We tried our best and we managed to deliver in many aspects, but obviously the platform is still under construction and this has disappointed many Panoramio members that use it daily. This change was the result of a need to migrate the last piece of software that was left from the pre-acquisition Panoramio. We knew it would be a rather painful process and we tried to delay it as much as possible, but it was now the time to move on. We have heard the feedback on this migration and we are strongly committed to addressing the concerns that have been raised. I sincerely appreciate all the messages of support that I have received since the change has gone live.

On the community side I am extremely excited about the amount of photographers and community events we could meet and join around the world:

One year more we joined our Spanish Community, this time in Asturias, in their yearly Kedada de Panoamigos. I want to send my warmest wishes to Mirta, Ángel, Faustino and Paco. I hope they will invite me again next year!
Buelipixx organized an amazing weekend in Zurich where more than 30 photographers visited the Üetliberg and the offices of Google in the CH-PA treffen 2011
We celebrated 3 regional User Geo Summits in Singapore, Barcelona and Mountain View where we invited our Panoramio Moderators and some local users to discuss their ideas on Panoramio, and spent some quality time together
YouTube and Panoramio teamed together in Tokyo to celebrate the YouTube x GEO Creator Day
The Death Valley Photowalk was organized by Thomas Hawk where I got to know a lot of very cool photographers. Within the gang I was especially excited to meet Jeff Sullivan. I have always been extremely impressed by his photos in Panoramio and meeting him in person was an amazing experience. He took me and Google+ Photos Community Manager Brian Rose in a day trip through the desert that I will never forget

Regarding events, this is just the start of a very exciting journey as we are currently working and planning workshops and photowalks all over 2012 for you to join and enjoy, stay tuned in the Panoramio Events Forum and Panoramio Events Calendar.

I am sure I am missing so many moments and experiences, but I am not worried about that as a lot more experiences are to come in 2012.

I want to really thank you all for being with us, I want to thank all the people I managed to meet this year both online and offline. A big hug to the entire Panoramio community, the Panoramio team, my friends and my family for supporting me, the project and our community.

And despite I know this is not Panoramio related, I still want to share with you the Zeitgeist 2011: Year In Review video. It is one of my favorite summaries of the year:

Happy 2012!
Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of October 2011: Unusual Location

2011-12-02T08:31:00.001-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Unusual Location category for the Panoramio contest of October 2011.

The First Prize is for a photo taken by tsushima in Japan.

The Second Prizeis for a photo taken by Diego DeGa in Italy.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for October 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of October 2011: Travel

2011-12-02T08:29:00.001-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Travel category for the Panoramio contest of October 2011.

The First Prize is for a photo taken by ladyloneranger in the US.

The Second Prizeis for a photo taken by Douglas Feltman in the US.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for October 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of September 2011: Heritage

2011-12-02T08:28:00.001-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Heritage category for the Panoramio contest of October 2011.

The First Prize is for a photo taken by picsonthemove in Poland.

The Second Prizeis for a photo taken by roy33 in Italy.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for October 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of October 2011: Scenery

2011-12-02T08:27:00.001-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Scenery category for the Panoramio contest of October 2011.

The First Prize for July is for a photo taken by @rjan in the Netherlands.

The Second Prize for July is for a photo taken by Arnika1 in Poland.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for October 2011.
Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

New Panoramio Forum

2011-11-24T10:19:00.001-08:00

After some sleepless hours, we have finally finished the migration to the new Panoramio forum. There will obviously be some changes with the old forum and I wanted to take a couple of minutes to highlight them:

Panoramio Accounts need to be upgraded to Google Accounts to be able to participate in the forum
As I explained already in the Panoramio Forum Migration post, new Panoramio accounts and accounts that have upgraded to Google accounts will have write access in the new Panoramio forum, although old Panoramio accounts that have not been upgraded will still be able to view the new forum. Please upgrade your account to Google Accounts if you want to have full functionality.

Email Subscription to Forum activity
You can subscribe to individual posts updates, but now you can also subscribe to daily summaries of Forum activity. The default is “No email” to allow you to decide the kind of subscription you want to enable. This setting is under the “My membership” button in each sub-forum.

Rich-format posts
The new Panoramio forum has a rich-format editor that allow you to write nice posts easily. You can add images by URL in the forum, we recommend you to use the “medium” format:
http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/1000.jpg
of the Image URLs of Panoramio.
We also recommend you to change the image URL to the URL of the photo page of the image:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1000
To do so, click one time in the image to open the image properties editor.

Infinite scrolling of topics
Topics and threads are organized using infinite scrolling. When you are at the end of the page, the forum will load more topics and threads if applicable. To facilitate searchability of posts in large forums you can use the Search box and the Filter menu. The Search box works for all new posts added after the migration, and we are currently working on making the old content searchable as well.

And with this many more things that you will discover as you use the forum.

Happy to hear your feedback on this in the Panoramio forum.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Account Deletion

2011-11-24T08:50:00.001-08:00

Starting today, you can delete your Panoramio account from the Panoramio Settings page.

Deleting a Panoramio account results in the deletion of all the content associated to that account, this being all the photos, comments, etc. When the deletion is a conscious decision, there is no problem, however, when the decision is made by mistake, the owner of the account may end up losing a lot of good content and the memories of the good times spent in Panoramio. For this reason we only allowed account deletion via an email request.

Today, we have made the deletion as simple as a button press, so our users have more control over the content, over their data. However, we still want to be sure that the user takes this decision consciously.

So the process works as follows. If you, as a Panoramio user, wish to delete your account, you will need to empty it first: remove all your photos and resign from all Panoramio groups. After that, you can go to your settings page where the delete option will be available for you.

It is important to notice that by deleting your Panoramio account, you do not delete your Google account nor any other Google service. If what you want is to delete your entire Google Account please refer to this article for more information.

Remember that you will always be able to join Panoramio again in the future if you delete your account, although your content will not be recoverable.

If you happen to have an account that is very big to manually remove the content, you can still send an email to delete@panoramio.com and we will eventually delete the account and the content for you.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Forum: Transition under works

2011-11-24T05:43:00.001-08:00

We announced a couple of weeks ago that we would be transitioning the Panoramio forum into a new Platform.

This is happening as we talk and we want to thank you for your patience while the new forum is underworks. We expect to complete the transition before the weekend.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

42 in 10

2011-11-16T15:26:00.001-08:00

42 in 10. This is the number of changes that we have rolled out during the last 10 days, and today I wanted to take the time to explain you a couple of them. Most of the changes are not visible to you, they will just make things work better.

Some visible changes are:

Better Password Recovery mechanism
As we already explained in a dedicated blog post, you can now recover your forgotten Panoramio password using your email address or your user_id in the Forgot your Password? form.

Slideshow URL supports now your username
You can share with your family and friends the Slideshow of your photos in Panoramio using the following URL:
http://www.panoramio.com/user/user_id/slideshow
or:
http://www.panoramio.com/user/username/slideshow

For example:
http://www.panoramio.com/user/3616830/slideshow
http://www.panoramio.com/user/gerard/slideshow

Albanian as new Panoramio language
We have rebuilt all the translations in Panoramio, by adding new strings and including all the latest translations we have received from those members of the Panoramio Community that help us making Panoramio available in their countries.
We have also added Albanian as a new supported language, and we have modified the translation files so they are more robust than before.

Contest link redirects to a random category
The top Contest link on the Panoramio User and Photo pages will bring you now to a random Contest category. We will be adding soon new categories to the contest so stay tuned to this.

Add a user avatar using a URL
You can now add a user avatar from a URL. In case you want to use one of your photos as an avatar, you just need to enter the URL of your photo and that is it. No need to upload it again.

Links in comments can contain parenthesis
We have added an explanation on how to add URLs with parenthesis in comments following the format: [Parentheses in the url](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goal_\(sport\))

There are many more improvements that affect your general experience in Panoramio like better behavior in resizing browser windows, error messages, Widget API improvements, thumbnail integrity, share to Buzz removal, etc. but I do not want to bore you listing all that ;)

We are fully committed with making Panoramio better for you, so stay tuned to further improvements to the site and have fun geopositioning ;)

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

HQP: A group’s perspective on itself, the impact of groups, and the world of Panoramio

2011-11-16T11:29:00.001-08:00

It’s been just a few short weeks since Panoramio introduced groups as a major new feature, and it’s probably not an exaggeration to say that this feature had a major impact on the nature and dynamics of Panoramio. I’m honored that Gerard asked me as the owner of one of these groups to tell you about us and what we think about Panoramio and the new group feature.

Why do we like Panoramio?

Panoramio gives us the opportunity to meet many people interested in photography. We can admire places, collect impressions, get to know many different cultures and interesting places all over the beautiful earth. Panoramio connects people of all nationalities and religions in a peaceful and harmonious way. As such, Panoramio is the foundation for a global community of people who are fascinated by the diversity of nature, cultures, people on this planet and eager to share this fascination with many others through the medium of photography. Panoramio makes the frequently discussed process of globalization a very personal experience: Suddenly I have friends in the most unlikely places on this planet!

In addition, Panoramio is the home of an interesting mix of amateurs and professionals which provides a training field in photography for everyone.

And last but not least, it is a rewarding experience to contribute to the global photo coverage in Google Earth.

What do we like about Panoramio Groups?

In this broader context of Panoramio, groups offer a great new opportunity to bring together people with similar interests. These shared interests are expressed in the collective creation of picture galleries highlighting many angles, aspects and facets of the topics of choice, but also – and equally important – in the exchange of ideas and experiences in group discussions resulting in mutual learning and opening horizons of different thinking and different approaches to many topics.

And the introduction of groups in Panoramio was so wildly successful that by now – within just a few weeks – there are tens of thousands of groups on just about any subject you can imagine.

What is our HQP group about and why should you join it?

Our group, ‘HQP’ for ‘High Quality Pictures’, is about the fascination of photography. Many groups are focused on certain objects or regions. In contrast, HQP has no fixed theme but explores and examines the very essence of photography: the visual impact of photographs. Any kind of photography is welcome, from amateurs and professionals alike, as long as certain quality standards are met. By now, there is a rich and diverse collection for everyone to enjoy.

This richness and diversity poses an interesting and challenging question: What makes a ‘high quality’ picture? HQP is a vibrant group with active members engaged in lively discussions around finding our identity in the face of this question. This discussion in itself offers a unique learning experience around exploring the strengths and limitations of diversity.

I invite everyone to join us in our quest to create – and enjoy – a visual gourmet meal and equally importantly to participate in our discussions around quality and finding our identity.

Guest Post by Mehrdad R, Creator of the HQP Group in Panoramio.

Forgot your Panoramio Password?

2011-11-15T17:30:00.001-08:00

Hi Panoramio Community,

We have modified:
www.panoramio.com/forgot_password
so you can now use it to reset your password by entering:

1. Your Email Address Associated to the Account or...
2. The user_id of your Panoramio Account

If you forgot your password, go to the Forgot your password? form and introduce the Email address associated to your Panoramio account in the Email address text box.
If you forgot your registered email address you can also enter your user_id in the Email address text box.

Your user_id is the number you can see in the URL of Panoramio when you are visiting your user page. As an example if you visit http://www.panoramio.com/user/3616830 the user_id is 3616830

If you still do not remember your user_id, you can go to Google Earth or Google Maps and look for a photo you uploaded. If you open the photo in a browser you will have a URL similar to http://www.panoramio.com/photo/61847651 Under the photo you will see your username. If you click on it you will see that the URL changes to:
http://www.panoramio.com/user/3616830?with_photo_id=61847651
The first number is the user_id.

After entering the Email address or the user_id in the Forgot your password? form, we will send an email to the email address associated to the Panoramio account with a link to reset the password. We can only help if you have access to the email address associated to your Panoramio account.

I hope this helps in case you miss your Panoramio password.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Forum Migration

2011-11-11T06:01:00.001-08:00

On March 2010 we announced the possibility to Sign In to Panoramio with your Google Account.

This improvement allowed us to leverage Google technologies within Panoramio like Geotagging photos using Google Latitude or the most recent launch of Panoramio Groups.

When Google acquired Panoramio we migrated all our code to Google technologies with the Panoramio forum being the last piece to complete. The Panoramio forum is a very important place for our community and this is the reason the migration of the forum is very important for us. The new technology in use will be something similar to Panoramio Groups and for this reason every Panoramio member that wants to participate in discussions in the forum will need to have the account linked to a Google Account.

The migration will work in different phases:

Phase 1: We will first migrate the content.
We expect that this will happen sometime between 21-25th of November. The whole archive will be migrated to the new forum technology and all the posts will be associated to the correct Panoramio usernames. Those users who have migrated already to Google Accounts will just see no problem in the migration. Their posts will be correctly migrated and associated. Users whose accounts are not associated to Google Accounts will need to do the association to continue using the forum, and will have to wait to Phase 2 to be able to have the old posts associated to your account.

Phase 2: Association of old posts.
In this phase we will associate the old posts from the archive to the users that have migrated to Google Accounts after the forum migration. We expect this phase to happen along the first quarter of 2012.

Small Q&A:

Q: What can I do to help us in this transition?
A: Please migrate to Google Accounts before we start the transition to the new platform, that means do it now.
Q: What happens if I have already migrated to Google Accounts?
A: Your transition to the new forum will be seamless. Your posts will be transferred to you and you will be able to use the forum without any difficulty.
Q: What happens if I migrate to Google Accounts before phase 1 starts?
A: The same as if you have already migrated, no problem.
Q: What happens if I migrate to Google Accounts between phase 1 and phase 2
A: You will be able to post in the forum after you migrate, but your old content will not be associated to your account so you will not be able to modify it until phase 2 is finished.
Q: What happens if I migrate to Google Accounts after phase 2?
A: As soon as you migrate you will be able to post in the forum and your old content will be associated to your account.
Q: What happens if I do not migrate to Google Accounts?
A: You will not be able to use the Panoramio forum. You will still be able to use Panoramio as you did until now.

Remember there is no problem if you want to migrate later, you will just need a bit of patience until we finish the process which may take a couple of months.

Many thanks to all of you that help us by migrating to Google Accounts before the transition of the forum happens, and also many thanks for those who will migrate afterwards but still will be patient until we complete the process.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of September 2011: Unusual Location

2011-11-11T06:00:00.001-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Unusual Location category for the Panoramio contest of July 2011.

The First Prize is for a photo taken by varkos in Athens.

The Second Prizeis for a photo taken by Achiper in spain.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for September 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of September 2011: Travel

2011-11-11T05:57:00.001-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Travel category for the Panoramio contest of September 2011.

The First Prize is for a photo taken by magnetismus in Denmark.

The Second Prizeis for a photo taken by Greece in Sergio Bagna.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for September 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of September 2011: Heritage

2011-11-11T05:53:00.001-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Heritage category for the Panoramio contest of September 2011.

The First Prize is for a photo taken by varkos in Athens.

The Second Prizeis for a photo taken by Achiper in spain.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for September 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of September 2011: Scenery

2011-11-11T05:49:00.000-08:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Scenery category for the Panoramio contest of September 2011.

The First Prize for July is for a photo taken by emilathanasiou@yahoo… in Greece.

The Second Prize for July is for a photo taken by tomigun66 in Norway.

Honorable Mentions are:

You can see all the winners in the results page for September 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio and Copyright

2011-10-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

We just published the results of the Panoramio Contest of August 2011. In the results we had this fantastic photo from Tore Heggelund:

The Panoramio community realized immediately though, that the image was not linked from Tore’s gallery but from another user’s gallery. The image was copied, published in another account’s gallery and submitted to the Panoramio monthly contest.

As soon as we realized the abuse, we corrected the mistake and took action on the infringing account. Since it was so swiftly reported through our users, I want to thank the Panoramio Community for finding and reporting this abuse. At the same time I want to use the opportunity to clarify the DMCA procedure.

When you upload an image to Panoramio you can decide on the permissions you give to that image following the Creative Commons (CC) licensing. You can define the license photo by photo or you can have a general setting across all the photos you upload in Panoramio. To change this, you can go to your Settings page in the “Sharing, licenses and copyright” section.

Adding CC licensing to your image will not avoid misuse of your material, but it will give you the right to complain about it. If your image has been copied within Panoramio you can report it using the DMCA infringement form. If the image is copied in any other Google property, you have also available a general Google DMCA form.

It may happen in some cases that a photo hosted in Panoramio is displayed in another site or media. If the site displaying the image is not using the Panoramio API to do so, or it is not following the rights that you are providing in your CC licensing, you can file a complain directly to the site that is infringing your rights. In most of the cases they are not aware they are infringing your rights and they may take action following your notification.

Thanks again for your help on this and thanks for respecting the rights of the photographers.

For more information regarding this subject, please visit the documentation about copyright in our help content.

Published by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Panoramio Contest of July-August 2011: Scenery

2011-10-24T05:12:00.001-07:00

I am happy to announce the results of the Scenery category for the Panoramio contest of July 2011 and August 2011.

The First Prize for July is for a photo taken by ©jjkphotos.com in Canada.

The First Prize for August is for a photo taken by BEDRİ AKÇAYin Turkey.

The Second Prize for July is for a photo taken by Falke in Oz in Germany.

The Second Prize for August is for a photo taken by zeemalik.

You can see all the winners in the results page for July 2011 and the results page for August 2011.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager