I use Picasa to share pictures with my friends and family. It has some great features, and even offers plug-ins for Apple's iPhoto software so you can upload directly to Picasa albums from iPhoto. Today, Google introduced a new API for Picasa that should make it easier to transfer pictures around -- once developers get around to actually using it to create Picasa buttons.The new application programming interface (API) for Picasa can be used by programmers to create custom buttons for Web sites or applications. Google said, "As a developer, you can easily add your own button to the Picasa UI using the 'picasa: pluggable protocol'. This is particularly useful for third-party developers who wish to integrate with Picasa, as it increases the presence of a service brand in the UI and enables end users to export images from Picasa into another application or service with one click."

Google's Michael Herf, from its Photo Team, wrote, "Using the Web uploader, you can make user interfaces that feel more like sending an e-mail and less like 'Wait an hour to upload'."

There's also another API from Google called the Web Uploader API. It lets users upload photos from Picasa to online services such as Web-based e-mail, blogging, gallery display, and photo printing services. Users can interact with a dynamic Web UI and preview images before sending photo data. PWU is a stateless API, which gives the developers and IT administrators the ability to control what images are uploaded (and at what sizes) via server settings. This API also supports uploads of video files.

Using these tools, developers can add their own flare and functions to Picasa. So go ahead, check out the APIs and have some fun.