Panoramio Pictures gone from Google Earth

[jcarter]

I clicked on GE this morning to show pictures of a frend's house in Costa Rica and the beautiful surrounding area where he lives.
The little photo icons are still there, but when you click on them, they do not show.
This is a total disaster! All of us use GE to see the hundreds of pictures of a place we want to visit, seeing the details of a town, a hiking area, a national park, anything, they are GONE!

This feature of GE being taken away, has rendered it useless for many of us. I see on the forums there, that they are being bombarded with complaints.

Anybody here know what the heck got into them, and how or why a decision like that was made?

[gunug]

Did you ever get this to work?  I haven't looked lately but I know the Google Earth I had installed on my Macbook Pro was a free version I got
somehow and not the online version.  I could do a lot more with it and the last time I tried the online version it didn't seem to work very well!

[jcarter]

Im trying to find an old version on my older computers, this is really tragic for us, as I want to see all the pictuers of the town in Europe where our granddaughter will attend college next year.
How would we get a non online version?  I am willing to try anything to get this back working, as GE is pretty worthless to us without these thousands of pictures.  

Ive sent feedback, along with thousands of other people who are just as upset as our family is.

[gunug]

I think this "may" have been offered as part of our Google rollout in the office; I'll see about that when I'm sitting in
the right place!

I found it at "https://www.google.com/earth/desktop/" not sure about terms of use!

[jcarter]

Thank you for this link, its got more info than I managed to get on their help page.
I think I will try to revert to an earlier version if that would solve this problem.
I did upgrade to this PRO version with the gray icon, but the picture overlay did not disappear at that time.

Every time we travel or visit anywhere, we rely on those little pictures. Also when our family, kids, grandkids travel, we use these as well.

[jcarter]

I just downloaded the new Chrome web version of GE and all our pictures are still missing. Our town has only a few and its the same view of people on the beach, all our personal landscape and harbor photos are gone, and all the other ones of our entire town are gone also.

What happened to the thousands of lovely photos which all these people uploaded?  I just cant understand what GE has done, its downright crazy, going back into the dark ages. The Earth might as well be FLAT for all I care about GE now.

[kimmer]

It doesn't matter what version of GE you use, the service is gone as Google is moving to photo-sharing experiences directly inside Google Maps.

Google’s statement:
http://www.panoramio.com

More official information:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#...aps/yDLD3TpS1WQ

copy of email sent to registered Panoramio users: (takes a bit to load)
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic...dY%5B351-375%5D

It’s hard to get this to load, so here’s the email (and I've skipped cleaning it up and doing the formatting -- sorry):

QUOTE

This is final call about Panoramio demise. Google sent this announcement (ironic: it fell in "spam" bin on GMail managed by Google's spam rules only):

Last year we informed you of our plans to retire Panoramio in order to invest our
efforts into improving photo-sharing experiences directly inside Google Maps.
This is a reminder that Panoramio will no longer be available after January 29, 2018.
Because you have linked your Panoramio profile  with a Google account, all your Panoramio photos will be copied to the
Google Album Archive  at full resolution after Panoramio goes away.
These copied photos will not use any of your Google storage quota. However, your Panoramio photos will stop appearing in Google Maps unless you upgrade to a Google+ account or join Local Guides.  
This is because Panoramio nicknames will no longer be supported, and we need
your name to give attribution for your photos. If you've already done this, then
you're all set.
If you want to keep contributing great photos to Google Maps and Google Earth, we
want you to know about the other options available to you. Today, with photo upload tools in Google Maps
and our Local Guides program, we are continuing to provide easy ways for you to share your photos. We also
recently added a new Photos Layer to Google Earth, which includes Panoramio photos and other great community
content.
 
To make this transition easier, we're providing several options to continue sharing
photos through other services. If you choose, you can also export all your data
and take it somewhere else.
1) Keep your photos in Album Archive
Because you have a Google account linked with your Panoramio account, we will
automatically copy your Panoramio photos to the
your Panoramio photos to the Google Album Archive
when Panoramio is retired.
   •   Copied photos will not use any of your Google storage quota.
   •   If you activate Google+  on your account, then eligible images and your View Counts will be transferred
   •   into Google Maps and will be visible when you sign in to Maps and access the Contributions screen
   •   from the main menu.
2) Export your photos to a local zip file
Visit takeout.google.com and follow the instructions there.

3) Become a Local Guide
To keep adding photos to Google Maps and engage with a growing community of
photographers, join the Local Guides program. You can earn points and unlock rewards for photos submitted with a
Google account when they are linked to a point of interest or business.
Many of your Panoramio photos may already be counted.

If you prefer to no longer share your photos with Google Maps, you can delete your
Panoramio photos or your entire account at any time.
   •   You can delete your Panoramio account (and photos) immediately by logging in,
   •   opening "Settings", and clicking the "Delete your account" option. You can also
   •   navigate to this page directly by using this link.
   •   If you delete any photos (or delete your entire account) before Panoramio is retired, that content will
   •   not be automatically copied to the Google Album Archive and will stop appearing in Google Maps.
 
Please see our Help Center article for more information and the various options you have to save, transfer, or
delete your content. We’ve appreciated your contributions over the years and
hope you will continue to share amazing photos with the world. 

Thank you,
The Panoramio team
Google
LLC 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
You've  received this mandatory service announcement to update you about important changes to Panoramio.

Google shuts down Panoramio
Posted Oct 7, 2016
https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/07/goodbye-panoramio/

[jcarter]

OMG, thats awful. I never got any this info at all, and I can see that most of my friends and classmates didn't either.

I will have to look thru this tomorrow, thank you! And will send it on to my people.

Most decisions like this end up being about money or politics, I wonder if this is part of that.

What is the alternative,,,,,,,Digital Globe? If so, lets really look into that!

We used GE constantly for the pictures of where our extended family was planning to travel, and with my photoshop classmates.

[gunug]

Google has a history of dropping popular features or even applications on little or no notice.  I don't know what more to say!  

[kimmer]

QUOTE(jcarter @ Feb 9 2018, 04:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Most decisions like this end up being about money or politics, I wonder if this is part of that.

Politics? I sincerely doubt that was the reason. Pretty sure it's financial, especially since they are pointing everyone to:

Google's Local Guides (which you must register for in order to upload photos)
https://maps.google.com/localguides

Plus register users can add photos directly to Google Maps:
https://support.google.com/maps/answer/2622947

In the long run, it's all about the money--and you are their product, not their customer or friend.

[jcarter]

I was afraid of that, money sure sets the rules, look at pro sports, its disgusting.

There are alternate things we can do, for example, a friend just opened a fishing B+B in Uvita, Costa Rica. Google earth had wonderful pictures of that entire town, they are all gone. But his own website, is covered with his photos that he and his wife and their friends took. So thats what I will look at from now on. There seems always to be some stunning photo websites on a particular place to visit.  My brother and his wife spent July driving all over Scotland last year, and GE had superb pictures, but they are all gone. But my brother took 2600 photos of that country, so I guess that is what people will do to replace GE's Panaromio photos. Im teaching him how to get them up onto the web using a photo site. Think we should use pbase.com, as they have untold thousands of photo pages of some pretty unique destinations.

Or just google for whatever destination,,,,,,,,example
https://www.google.com/search?q=pictures+of...638&bih=776