Google-owned Photovine is now live - but what is it?

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Google, Software

Another photo service is about to enter the digital space. The Web site for Photovine is live but lacking in information, other than a teaser video.

Photovine was built by a company named Slide which was acquired by Google in 2010. Google reportedly paid about $228 million for Slide.

The skimpy homepage is labeled "Photovine," with a tag that reads "plant a photo, watch it grow". There is one sentence under that reads, "Photovine is a fun way to learn more about your friends, meet new people, and share your world like never before."

The app is displayed in use on an iPhone 4 to the right of the text. That's thoroughly confusing given that Google owns the Photovine trademark. It stands to reason that an Android phone would be more apropos.

There is a link to the Privacy Policy and Support pages at the bottom of the site. The privacy page is vague. According to Business Insider, the support page has a full FAQ about the service. As of now, the support page only provides an email for problems and feedback.

As per Business Insider's findings, users create collections of photos called "Vines". These vines are separate by themes, captions, ideas, etc.

A Google spokesperson had this to say on the service, "Photovine is a photo sharing service built by a few folks at Slide. We don't have any further details to share at this time."

It's anybody's guess when Photovine will appear in any app store.

For more from Andru, follow him on Twitter @andruedwards

This article, written by Julius Motal, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc.