Panoramio's Blog

9 Responses to “New search engine”  

1. 1 Filipe Freitas on Feb 20th, 2008 said:

   Those are useful enhancements.
   Thank you

2. 2 Antonis Karatzas on Feb 21st, 2008 said:

   You did all this but you removed also options from the search results.
   For example the location ‘Arki’ now gives only 3 results. Before was 7-8 as I remember.
   Why does it happening?

   Thank you in avdance for your reply

   Antonis

3. 3 Eduardo Manchón on Feb 21st, 2008 said:

   Antonis, in the former search engine sometimes there were very important places mixed with completely unknown ones, that made it slow and difficult to use.

   In the new search engine you will find also all those 7-8 places you got before, but you need to write further details, for example, the name of the province and the country. Can you please try and tell me if you get them all? Thanks,

4. 4 Marco Dileo on Feb 22nd, 2008 said:

   Please….add a webapp for the iPhone/iPod touch

   and moreover…please improve integration between Picasaweb and Panoramio.
   For instance the possibility of publishing a photo, that i’ve already published on Picasa, directly in Panoramio.

5. 5 Breum on Feb 24th, 2008 said:

   hi
   Wonder when it wille be possible to upload direct form Picasa. And an integration between Picasaweb and panoramio/Earth.
   The white roads in Earth can be difficult to see when on top of clouds.

6. 6 Claudio Pedrazzi on Feb 25th, 2008 said:

   Marco, and Eduardo, yes, I made the same suggestion (Picasa Panoramiio integration) a lot of time ago, and still consider it a very important step to facilitate the usability. Now that you are part of Google, it should be easy. I for example geoposition my photos in Picasa, and it would be very fine to be able to upload them from the Picasa environment, if necessary one by one (I understand the wish not to make batch upload available).
   Anyway, for the search engine, well done. Thanks

7. 7 Michael on Feb 27th, 2008 said:

   Great new updates! But I’ve a little problem . . . . when you used to search for ‘Newfoundland’ it would bring up the 7 places called ‘Newfoundland’ in the world. Now, only the 4 small towns in America are listed. Newfoundland, an island roughly the size of Cuba, home to 512,000 people, one of Canada’s 10 provinces, and an independent nation as recently as 1949, is not even an option! And when I type “Newfoundland, Canada” it takes me to Labrador, which is an entirely different place altogether (same political administration though — sort of like getting Corsica when you type France, maybe).

   Similarly, “Placentia” used to give a list of options, but now it takes one straight to the city in California. This is despite the fact that 6 of the first 10 results in a google search for Placentia are for the town of Placentia Newfoundland, one of 20 largest towns in the province.

   I realize you guys probably have tonnes of other work to do, but it seems there are at least a few glitches that should be fixed when you next have a chance!

8. 8 Eduardo Manchón on Mar 6th, 2008 said:

   Michael, in those cases the best is to add information to clarify which “Newfoundland” do you mean, for example, if you write “Newfoundland, Terranova” you get the right place. For “Placentia” the same rule applies, please, try with “Placentia, Newfoundland” and you will get the right place.

   Basically the problem is that the importance of the cities is not always well specified in the database, so in some cases you need to write something else and not only the name. For example, the Newfoundland you mean is the most important one and should be the one by default, but the Placentia in California has 10 times more population than the one from Newfoundland”.

9. 9 Michael on Mar 7th, 2008 said:

   I concede the Placentia question, although I will say population isn’t the only criterion you should consider (historical importance, context within the larger geography of the region, etc). Also: what about the Placentia in Italy and the Placentia in Belize (if I remember the old list of options correctly)? I don’t see what’s wrong with giving the user a choice rather than automatically selecting a default over-ride. That plus the rather startling choice to limit Newfoundland to the 4 American options (seriously, if there’s a list of options why not make it a full international one?) makes me think American places are being privileged.

   In any case . . . “Newfoundland, Terranova” isn’t a search anyone familiar with Newfoundland would think to try . . . . in fact, I have never heard “Newfoundland, Terranova” as a phrase before today, and I’ve lived in Newfoundland most of my life. Terra Nova is the archaic latin name for the island, so it’s just writing the name twice, like putting “Germany Allemagne” (I was curious; that takes me to Luxembourg!)

   When people search for Newfoundland and only get 4 small American towns as options, they will think “oh, I mean Newfoundland, Canada” and search for that. That’s the sensible thing, and it’s what I do whenever I’m taken to a wrong place — I add the country. “Newfoundland, Canada” takes you to Labrador, which is like searching for Denmark and ending up in Greenland.

   Anyway I’m glad to hear it’ll be fixed when you get the time to fix it . . . I use Panoramio in a seniors’ computer training course which I hold regularly as part of my job. I’m happy to do it as I think it’s a great site and a great service, and the Panoramio/Google Earth class is always a big hit. But this new search system has caused many problems, as a lot of the places the seniors liked to go to don’t come up as options when they search anymore. Sometimes adding extra information works, but not always.

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