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.