Thomas Hawk - evangelist at Zooomr

Robert Scoble writes of a evening photo walking with Thomas Hawk.  In it he describes Thomas Hawk as

... one of the most talented photographers I’ve seen ... an authority on everything photo. Including all of his competitors like Flickr, Picasa, Smug Mug, Riya, Tabblo, Vizrea, Web Shots, Photo Bucket, FotoLog, and others.

Thomas Hawk is the Chief Evangelist for the Photo Sharing Site Zooomr, and writes about the same evening in Had a Great Night Hanging out With Scoble.  Robert was filming the evening for his new job At PodTech, and we should be able to see the results some time in September.

I had a look through Thomas' blog, to see what he's shared with his readers about Picasa:

• Better Than Flickr, Better Than Picasa... it Just Doesn't Exist Yet, Photohawk is a insightful look at what various photo programs and sites offer, and how a fictional Photohawk site would take image search to the next level. [January 2005].
• Google Acquires Picasa noting it was a good move, and hoping that they made it possible to upload from Picasa to Blogger (which is indeed now possible) [July 2004]
• Does Hello Picasa Effect Google Image Search Placement wondering whether uploading images via Hello provides a boost to ranking in Google image search. [September 2005], a theme also mentioned in Stockpipeline Wants to be the eBay of the Stock Photography Business [September 2005],  Is Something Up with Google Image Search? [January 2005], I Think Google is Reindexing Their Image Search Again [October 2005]
• BusinessWeek Online Pans Google's Picasa consisting merely of a link to a review of Picasa by BusinessWeek. [November 2005]
• Why an Open API is Important to the Web 2.0 Social Contract covering the need for user data to be portable amongst photo programs and sites (and by implication, criticising Picasa which does not make an API available). [June 2006]
• My Dinner With Microsoft Exec Jim Allchin in which he reveals that Windows Vista will have photo editing and tagging similar to many of Picasa's features built in [January 2006], which is also mentioned in CES Day One [January 2006] and dealt with in much more detail in Photo Tags in Vista Media Center [July 2006]
• 10 Tips for the New Digital SLR Photographer in which after urging the photographer to get hold of Photoshop, notes that "If you really, really can't afford Photoshop or want something else for a laptop on the go or something, also take a look at Google's Picasa. It's pretty good for free software. Not as good as Photoshop, but you can't argue with the price and it does do a lot of the basics nicely." [April 2006]
• Pixoh: Edit Pictures Online commenting on the prograssion from Photoshop (expensive and complex), to Picasa (free and easier to use), to Pixoh (online, and very easy to use). [March 2006]

Certainly plenty of insightful comment there, backed by plenty of real experience.