Josh McWilliam:
I personally only need to share photos with family and friends easily (and cheaply) without sharing them with the entire world.
picasa web albums do allow you to create private albums which you can share with your friends through a link with an authkey, and it's free. I'm personally quite happy with this service and use it exactly for the same purpose.
there is also a www.pbase.com;
adobe has opened its beta photo sharing, photo editing service that looks quite promising
https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html