Google's Secret Weapon for Social: Your Photos - Businessweek

In case you're unhappy with both of Facebook's photo-sharing services (assuming the Instagram deal closes); also see Google+ for Android: polish and performance

"Ratcliff isn’t alone in his use of Google+. Photographers in particular have embraced the social network with enthusiasm, making use of the way it presents photos within news feeds and the integrated lightbox that makes it easy to browse entire galleries. This has led not only to grassroots-organized Google+ photo walks—meet-ups of like-minded photographers who go out in the field and take photos together—but also to a Google+ specific conference that is bringing amateur and professional photographers to San Francisco this week. “It’s exploded,” says conference organizer Scott Kelby about photographs flocking to Google+. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Google has obviously been paying attention to this. You have only to look to the recent revamp of the Google+ iOS app, which now puts a much bigger emphasis on photos, to see where things are going for Google+."

Google's Secret Weapon for Social: Your Photos - Businessweek