Nat Torkington writes up a good precis of Google Plus and, well, its pluses and minuses, and it’s worth a read. I agree with him especially that Circles are confusing and the ability to share with a Circle should be limited to that Circle; people in that Circle shouldn’t be able to reshare what you’ve shared with them.
He points out that Google has done the right thing in allowing you to take your data with you out of the system, unlike on Facebook. This is important. He groups this under the bad, but it should be under the good. The “free and be-advertised-to” business model is the default model, and he takes them to task for not innovating on the business model. He says “You’ll notice that none of the social networks have subscription options. Nobody says “pay me $100/yr and I’ll keep all your data private and you can have an ad-free experience.” As Kellan pointed out (on Google Plus) there is at least one service where you can pay $25 a year for exactly that, Flickr.
Caterina.net 
Good point about circle sharing. What I really surprised about is that everybody think of the circles as something new and confusing. G+ Circles are exact copy of Facebook Friend Lists. The ones located inside chat panel. Google just implemented the functionality of forming the circles much better. Both networks allow to post to circles or particular friend list. Nothing new here except that in G+ you follow people like in twitter, rather than friend mutually.
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Circles are really just tags for people, to help put them into reasonable groups (Work, Soccer Pals, Family, etc…) but the part that people seem to be having trouble with is that they aren’t really permissions, in that your stuff isn’t constrained to sharing with just those people.
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“I agree with him especially that Circles are confusing and the ability to share with a Circle should be limited to that Circle; people in that Circle shouldn’t be able to reshare what you’ve shared with them.”
I can imagine this as a permission at the item level; something like a checkbox that says, “Do not allow circle members to reshare this without permission.”
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You know guys, now I think that OK… let’s think about what your circle could reshare from your post. It is definitely not your photos or videos as there is limited access. And definitely not your thoughts again because access to it is limited to your circle. At the end your circle may reshare only links you share or external photos of kitties you share. So, is there reason to bother about this?
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Hi! Caterina,
You’ve been featured on:
http://filipinosinauckland.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/may-pacebuk-ka-na-1/
http://christchurchfilipinos.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/may-pacebuk-ka-na-1/
http://filipinosinhamilton.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/may-pacebuk-ka-na-1/
http://filipinosinwellington.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/may-pacebuk-ka-na-1/
and the community here in New Zealand are proud of your achievements.
Thought you might like to share this stuff with your circle of friends and contacts in the good ‘ol USA.
regards,
Karl
P.S. Like you, I’m half-Filipino half-German, lived and studied in Callfornia nearly all of six years and moved on to other things before settling here in New Zealand.
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