Guest post by Amy Sample Ward
Membership Director, NTEN

Google+, the latest iteration on social networking from Google, is here.

As always, when it’s just the first trickling of people joining up, the way the tool is used, the depth of some functionality, and the technical issues are all a bit out of proportion. With all of that as a grain of salt, I want to share a few reflections focused on security and control – the items touted ahead of launch as the elements separating Google+ from Facebook.

Privacy: Changing your settings is a breeze

It may seem strange to users who are new to Google tools, but the Google+ privacy settings are tied in to all of your Google account privacy settings. (Check your settings now if you want!) In some ways, this could be confusing to people who’ve become accustomed to Facebook’s approach which has layers of settings and changes those layers, options, and controls all of the time. Now, your sharing and connecting settings apply to much more of the Web than just your social networking profile.

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