When Google acquired Slide over a year ago, it was another step towards developing a larger photo-sharing coupe.  Last week they launched a photo-sharing app for iOS and Android devices, Photovine, which was developed by Slide.

Now, it seems as though the photo-sharing ingenuity of Photovine has been incorporated to the Panoramio, a geolocation-oriented photo-sharing website by Google, as they launched a new feature, the Panoramio Group.

Just like Photovine, where photo-sharing leads to story-sharing, the new feature “lets you create a sub-community within Panoramio around a topic you’re passionate about, so yo can easily engage with like-minded photographers and hobbyists.”  With your photos, others can upload their own photos regarding the topic you created, letting them share their own stories and adventures.

The photos shared on Panoramio can be seen in Google Maps and Google Earth, making it more fun to browse through both apps as you’d get to see photos not only of the location, but also other interesting features of some locations.

Google Maps also gets upgraded with a new weather layer feature that lets you see the precise weather for a region directly on top of the Google Maps image.  With this feature, Google shows that they are focusing on bringing in more travel-features especially now that they are looking into acquiring travel-oriented companies.  And they have officially launched the URL shortening services which was previously just an experiment.

And as Google is improving Maps and Earth, Google’s Street View is now available to more than 30 countries with the recent addition of Israel, though it is not welcomed with open arms as security and privacy concerns are still an issue.

This is yet another example of Google leveraging one of its projects for another, but the common denominator here is Maps.  Location-awareness is an important basis for several applications, and it’s also becoming more social.  Easing users into more locally-aware applications, several companies have turned to photo-sharing as an enabling tactic for higher user engagement.  When it comes to Google, these developments are but small feats in the larger goal of worldwide domination.