Google+ is refreshing, it shows social networking can be better.
also, if you distrust facebook, what makes you trust google? they've had plenty of privacy issues in the past in regards to social networking (buzz, etc).
Google+ launched an hour ago in private beta, isn't it a bit early to call it refreshing and better? :)
There's a lot to be said for having your content pushed to your network in a way that's easy to use.
In fact, Buzz's integration of "external feeds" is much better done than FB. I'd hope this applies to Google+ also.
I dont like the UI of flickr (cant even use it, and Im a comp-sci major) and it doesnt integrate well with Facebook (tagging), where most of my friends are, sadly. I guess flickr might have improved since I last gave it a chance, but still something doesnt feel good about it. The same for picasa.
Hundreds of millions of people, apparently. Anyway, you can download the high res image nowadays via the link below the picture.
All Google needs is a beachhead, right? For Facebook it was Harvard and then Ivy League schools. Perhaps for Google their beachhead is the Anti-Facebook people.
Once it grows a bit, people start writing apps that abstract FB and G+. Think: iPhone app with a Newsfeed feature that just seamlessly merges your FB and G+ feed.
The existence of apps like that will make it trivial for people to have a G+ profile in addition to -- even if never instead of -- their Facebook account. And then it's up to Google to grow more and more mindshare.
Maybe it'll always be an also-ran. A Facebook lil brother. But I wouldn't just write it off. We've seen this story before.