I'm hoping that you've misread something! Picasa used to let you save to web in what were called Picasa web albums - all very useful for sites such as this taht want you to publish online and link to in threads. Also good because there was a lot of free online storage to use across platforms, or to give links to people you wish to bore.
The latter bit is what they're renaming Google Photos. Not a lot more than a new name really.