Google's photo-sharing site got a fair degree more social this afternoon.  Now, users should find the process of sharing their pictures to be simpler, although Google's choice of products to feature is perhaps a little on the odd side.

Easy-share buttons for Blogger, Google Buzz, and Twitter have been introduced, and as Ping Chen, a software engineer, explained on the Google Photos Blog, "To share a photo or album from Picasa Web Albums straight to any of these sites, just click the appropriate icon to the right of your photo, customize your message, and post it."

Or, the engineer then added, "We also know that sometimes you don't want to share quite so publicly, but actually just want to share a link to a single unlisted photo, without revealing the whole album.  We've now made this possible, by updating the 'Link to this photo' URL so that the album name is hidden on the viewer's photo page (the 'Share' button still works as normal)."

These are useful features.  The only issue is how Google picked its own unpopular Buzz for an easy-share button over, say, Facebook, MySpace, or any number of other sites with a social component.

This tends to make it look like the search giant is trying to promote its own offering, even if other options would better serve Picasa users.