Why Picasa Web Albums users shouldn't adopt Google+ yet

Time to break the promise to not write about Google+ and the lack of Picasa Web Albums integration. Sorry. There's just more things that get broken in Picasa Web Albums when you join Google+ that Google doesn't tell you, so yours truly has to deliver the unpleasant truth. (once more;)

After I moved my Picasa Web Albums from my main Google account (which is Google+ enabled) to a secondary account (not Google+ enabled), I added myself as a follower in both directions - the Google+ account is a follower of the "legacy" account's Picasa Web Albums activity, and vice versa.

My intention was to add photos to my Google+ account that would more or less reflect that what I present as a portfolio on my 500px-generated website. But after I added the first batch of photos from Lightroom just as usual, I noticed a couple of odd things:

• the newly generated album and added photos do not create an activity item in my Google+ stream. None of my followers in Google+ will notice that I added photos. I had to manually "Share" the album with "Public" to generate an entry in my stream.
• the uploads did not generate an automatic activity post in my Google Buzz stream either (where the Picasa Web Album of my Google+ account is a connected site that should add activity to the stream)
• The email digest of new uploads from people I'm following (in my plain, non-Google+ account) does not contain the uploads from my Google+ account, and I did not receive an email digest of Picasa Web Albums activity in my Google+ enabled account.

That made me curious what else would be broken with the notifications. I added a comment (using my Google+ account) to a photo in my regular Picasa Web Albums account. I subscribed to further comments (that's the default anyway) and then posted a "reply" to that comment from my "plain" Google account. I never received a notification for that reply in my Google+ account. Not via email, and not as a notification in Google+ either.

For me, that is a total showstopper. The conversations in Picasa Web Albums are the essence of the service, and it turns out that not only are regular Picasa Web Albums users locked out from conversations (commenting) on Google+ shared photos, but also that Google+ users are locked out from taking part in conversations of regular Picasa Web Albums shared photos.

Time for a Summary:

• If you are a Google+ user, only other Google+ users can comment on your photo. Note that if a Google+ user comments on your (Google+ shared) photo, you do not get the traditional and convenient email notification that someone has commented on your photo from Picasa Web Albums*. Instead, a post is generated for you in the stream - and everyone who was able to originally see the photo will also see that post! (I made the mistake of following Sergej Brin on Google+ while hundreds of people were going through his Picasa Web Albums, making comments on his photos... quite a mess in his stream. Which could become quite annoying for people who consider you a personal friend and have you in their reading circle because of that.)
• If a Google+ user comments on a non-Google+ user's photos and subscribes to further comments of the photo, the Google+ user will not get email notified of the comment replies. So the only way you can find out if someone responded to you is if you manually go check that photo! (or check the "Recent comments" list of the user to maybe find replies - not very convenient.)
• As a Google+ user, if you upload photos to your Picasa Web Albums, none of your "regular" Picasa Web Albums followers will get your content in the email digest - so your followers will only know that you've uploaded new content if they check the "Recent activity" list on the "Home" tab of their Picasa Web Album. And no matter which way you add photos to your Google+ albums, an activity update/post is not posted to your Google+ stream. The only exception is when you add a photo directly to a post. Your Picasa Web Albums followers see the activity in their recent activity stream, but they do not see it in their email digest.
• As a Google+ user, you will not receive the Picasa Web Albums email digest anymore at all. You will not be notified by email of the upload activity of people you are following. The only way to find out about your friend's uploads is to go to Picasa Web Album's "Recent activity" list (and the "Home" tab) which will probably show you some Google+ user's uploads and non-Google+ user's uploads. Or you can go to your Photos from your Circles page inside Google+ which will show you other Google+ user's content in a, well... rather messed-up and not very easy to follow way.

There's only one advice I can give to all long-time Picasa Web Albums users who have a living community there at the moment: stay away from Google+ or migrate your photos to a secondary account if you really want to use Google+ (that's what I did.)

I can't help but think that those who decided on the photo sharing features that are in Google+ now and how they were implemented must not have had a frightening lot of experience on photo sharing, and didn't know much about the existing Picasa Web Albums users and communities either.

The way photo activity in general is currently handled in Google+ doesn't really make it an attractive platform for photo sharing yet in my opinion. I can only urge the early adopters of Google+ currently being in the field trial to use that "Send feedback" option a lot to express what they're missing from Google+ and make themselves heard whenever they're asked for their opinion, photo-sharing wise ...and hope that someone at Google will listen.

*) unless you're using the email notifications from Google+, which for me defeats the purpose of the platform.