Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

With 100 Million Monthly Users, Google Is Ready to Talk About Numbers With Google Photos

Paris, dogs and GIFs FTW.

iStock

Love for Google Photos inside the Googleplex overfloweth. At conferences, on earnings calls, in cocktail parties, Google execs shower praise on the cloud photo storage and sharing service it launched back in May. For good reason: It’s a simple, practical product that shows off Google’s machine learning prowess without any of the baggage of Google+, from which it was born.

And people are using it. On Tuesday, the search giant announced that Photos, in its first five months, has crossed 100 million monthly active users.

Google assembled some factoids to accompany the milestone. Paris is the top photographed locale, followed by New York and Barcelona. “Babies” are the top searched-for term. Users created 15 million GIFs. People take more photos of dogs than any other animal. (Take that, cats.) More critically, the service has freed up 3,720 terabytes of data — or, in Google’s words, enough space to fill up a 16 gigabyte phone with photos every day for 637 years.

This glee and transparency stand in sharp contrast to Google+, the social network from which Photos emerged. Google put out monthly active user numbers of around 300 million in 2013, then stalled on releasing more. A year ago, when Re/code asked Google+ director David Besbris about user numbers for the service, he responded: “I don’t want to talk about numbers.”

Times change.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

More in Technology

Politics
The Supreme Court will decide when the police can use your phone to track youThe Supreme Court will decide when the police can use your phone to track you
Politics

Chatrie v. United States asks what limits the Constitution places on the surveillance state in an age of cellphones.

By Ian Millhiser
Future Perfect
The simple question that could change your careerThe simple question that could change your career
Future Perfect

Making a difference in the world doesn’t require changing your job.

By Bryan Walsh
Technology
The case for AI realismThe case for AI realism
Technology

AI isn’t going to be the end of the world — no matter what this documentary sometimes argues.

By Shayna Korol
Politics
OpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agendaOpenAI’s oddly socialist, wildly hypocritical new economic agenda
Politics

The AI company released a set of highly progressive policy ideas. There’s just one small problem.

By Eric Levitz
Future Perfect
Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.Human bodies aren’t ready to travel to Mars. Space medicine can help.
Future Perfect

Protecting astronauts in space — and maybe even Mars — will help transform health on Earth.

By Shayna Korol
Podcasts
The importance of space toilets, explainedThe importance of space toilets, explained
Podcast
Podcasts

Houston, we have a plumbing problem.

By Peter Balonon-Rosen and Sean Rameswaram