Update on Picasa album re-sharing and Google+

This is the notice displayed on Picasa Web Albums since joining Google+. It reads:

You've recently joined Google+. Note the following changes to Picasa Web Albums:
  • Albums you've shared can in turn be tagged and shared by others.
  • For new albums, anyone an album is shared with can see who else it is shared with.
  • When you tag someone, they receive a notification and can see the photo and the related album.

I understand that sharing transparency and re-sharing are features that make Picasa albums more social, but I would really appreciate the option to turn them off. Sometimes I want to be less social. There's already re-sharing controls for individual posts on Google+. Why do you need to open up my albums too?

Google+ Invites: Here This Evening, Gone by Morning

I sent out my first invites for Google+ last night. I posted about it and expected I'd invite a few more people in the morning, only to wake up and find the invite option was gone. According to Vic Gundotra invites were switched off due to "insane demand." Hopefully we'll see them on again soon.

So far, I'm quite happy with Google+. The privacy model makes sharing scope much more prominent than other social networking sites (why name names?). It's easy to tell who a post will be shared with and I can change that scope as I see fit using "circles" (a.k.a., groups, lists, etc.). +1 is already implemented, of course. I'm looking forward to trying a "hangout" group video chat once a few more of my friends are on board.

Google+ Me

I received an invite to Google+ (Google's latest foray into social networking) this afternoon, just hours after it was announced. My first impression is that they're going to need to tighten up the default privacy settings. Just getting through the signup process meant agreeing to have my Picasa photos and videos displayed on my Google Profile page (which I immediately went to and turned these things off). And although my "circles" are empty initially, these are also displayed on my profile by default. Turned that off too. One thing I can't seem to turn off is that joining Google+ made it so that people I share my Picasa content with can then share that content with others. Not cool, Google. Give me back control of my content. I realize it's impossible to actually prevent my content from reaching third parties after I share it (shoulder-surfing, save, etc.) but I should have the option of whether to let other people re-share my photos and videos through Picasa.

I'm still looking around, but I haven't found a way yet to invite anyone else to join Google+. So, unless my friends and family sign up and get invited (unlikely given past experiences) I may be alone here for quite a while. On the plus side (pun absolutely intended) it says that non-Google+ users I add to my circles will still be able to receive links to content I share, they just can't interact with it the way a Google+ user could. Oh, well.