I’ve been saying “goodbye” — figuratively speaking, of course — to a lot of things I’ve used in the past.  For instance, I recently said “goodbye” to using Firefox in favor of Google Chrome.  Now I am saying goodbye to Flickr, a service I’ve used for many years.

Instead of Flickr, I plan to use Google’s Picasa Web Albums (PWA) for uploading and sharing my photos from now on (in addition to sharing them here on this blog.)  The reason for this switch is simple:  Google recently dropped the storage prices to ridiculously low levels.  I’m able to pay $5 per year for 20 Gb of storage.  Compare that to paying nearly $25 per year for Flickr.  I realize that with Flickr, storage at the Pro account level is unlimited, but 20 Gb of storage on Google is way more than enough for all of my online photo albums.

I also realize that Flickr will remain a favorite of photography cognoscenti, and that my switch to PWA won’t hurt Flickr in any way. But there are several other reasons I made the switch besides the cost factor.  Since it was first released, I have used Google’s free desktop photo application, Picasa.  It is head and shoulders above just about every other similar software application out there, particularly with the latest release.  I’ve tried a lot of other similar applications, including iPhoto, and I’ve decided that Picasa is the best for my needs.  There is tight integration between Picasa and PWA, so this tilts the balance in favor of switching to PWA in my mind.  In comparison, Flickr has all kinds of third-party plugins for uploading and downloading files and other stuff, and I’ve tried them all.  Picasa is way ahead in this area and Flickr is at a significant disadvantage.

Also, because Picasa is available on Windows and Mac, I am able to interact with my photos no matter what computer I am using.  This is critical.  I can download photos from my cameras onto any of the computers I use, load them into Picasa, and then sync with PWA.  I can then download them or sync them from PWA to Picasa on any other computer.  I can do all this on my iPhone as well (for this, I use Pixelpipe).

Picasa Web Albums lacks many of the nice features that Flickr has, I’ll admit.  For example, PWA only recently began to track number of views for each photo, as well as number of times a photo is “favorited.”  This was built into Flickr and is much better executed.  In PWA, for example, I can’t see a summary of this data. Instead I am only able to see it on an individual photo by photo basis.  However, over the years I have become a bit frustrated with Flickr’s overall capabilities as well.  Google’s Picasa has excellent face recognition, for instance.  Flickr does not.  Flickr’s overall interface is bland and somewhat stagnant (my opinion).  Picasa Web Albums features much better geolocation capabilities.  PWA also has tight integration with Google Contacts and Flickr doesn’t have anything to compare to this.

I’ve actually used both services for years.  The only substantive thing holding me back from making the switch was the cost of storage on PWA.  Now that it is set at a reasonable price, the decision was a no-brainer.  (And did I mention that the extra storage I purchased for PWA can be used for all kinds of other stuff, not just for photos?)