Google Photo Spheres in your Google Photos

Google Photo Spheres are a great way to get a 360 view of a location. Armed with my iPhone and the Street View app, I've been collecting different locations for a few years (https://goo.gl/GIfgTC). When I make them public and assign a location to them, they'll show up in Google Maps for that location as well as that location's Google Business Page.

On my last trip to Panama I noticed  my photos spheres were showing along with the photos automatically uploaded from my phone through the Google Photos app. However, when you're looking at the sphere's in an album view, they show up warped and weird (i.e. flattened). Then I discovered the trick - click on the image. Photos appear in a large format and *photo spheres load up*! Now I can see the 360 effect from within my photo album.

Here's an album that contains some photos as well as spheres. Remember, click on the spheres to get the full effect!

https://goo.gl/c0pPf2

Storing Videos on Google Drive

For many schools and organizations, uploading videos to Youtube is not an option. However, Google Drive not only provides a storage location, it will also process videos and create streamed versions — just like the videos on Youtube. Although they do not include many of the functionalities associated with Youtube (comments, indexing, time stamps, etc) you can link to and embed the video streams.

Viewing

When you load a video to Drive, Google automatically creates a preview. Once the video has been processed, clicking on the video will take you to the streamed view. Click on the Share button and you can send the link for others to see.

Embedding

From the Shared view (not the preview), the More Actions provides an Embed option. Just copy and paste the code onto your site.

Formats and Captioning

Google Drive supports a number of common formats, including .mov, .mp4 and .avi (http://goo.gl/9Ce7hW). You can also add captions to your Google video (http://goo.gl/MNY4YD).


Update: Files stored in Google Drive are subject to bandwidth limitations (http://goo.gl/mRhp0j). A great solution for sharing videos to your class or school, if you expect high traffic you may want to look at another option.


Note: the video stream below is stored on Google Drive. Because of bandwidth limitations of Drive, if this video is not available, please use: http://youtu.be/QpSkPq_Kx-M.