Seems G+ Has Legs After All [Now Entertaining Invite Reqs!]
Remember that poll I did a while back about whether or not Google+ had legs? Well I forgot how you guys voted but, given the WP presence hereabouts, I’m guessing most of you were wrong as Google+ is doing better than anyone could possibly have expected. G+ has legs all right. And I’m talkin’ the kind that are really functional yet rather appealing, clean, no clutter and crap all over them, and part of a nice overall blonde package. You know?
Looking at some Bloomberg-Yougov survey (Yougov looks legit, despite sort of sounding Russian) of a thousand adults, got some interesting data out of them. So Google hit twenty million users within three weeks, something that took Facebook and Twitter months to do. Right now they’re closing in on thirty and have double digit penetration in the US. Though at 13% that’s the smallest of the top five, those surveyed reported being nine times more likely to join Google+ within a year versus Facebook, threefold versus Twitter. Ahh I’ll just post the table:
Ouch, Myspace.
Yougov reports that 30% of Facebook users who’ve started using G+ are cutting or intend to cut down on their Facebook use this year. Regarding engagement, 45% of Google+ users blaze it up daily, versus 62% of Facebook users, 8% LinkedIn, 6% Myspace and 42% Twitter.
Those in this survey on Google+ reported creating content a little more frequently than Twitter users (46%, 42% respectively). Three men for every two women on Google+ versus one man for every 1.2 women on Facebook, more likely to be single, younger and, and this one’s a little peculiar, 59% of Google+ users in the survey have a college degree versus 37% of Facebook respondents. haeY
By the way, no need to run AdBlock on Google+, they’re not running ads, which at least one guy speculates may not ever change with Google probably dramatically undercutting Facebook with their cut of games or whatever they do over there to monetize it at the expense of degrading user experience and making people a little more likely to taste what Google’s offering. Though I’ve never heard anyone say that Google+ will ever dethrone Facebook, certainly not anytime soon, I think it’s time for us to stop shrugging off Google+ as another Buzz / Orkut / Wave, don’t you? Damnit G+ obviously has legs!
Word on the street is that China’s blocking Google+, which I see as an indicator of a successful liftoff of the service. Not being blocked with Facebook being blocked, that would be kind of emasculating. Besides, the Chinese seem to be interested still in other things anyway.
Say, any word on that WP app yet?
Doug Simmons
[update]
I just figured out how to invite people, so if you want an invite, just bang out a comment (this time with your legit email but in the email field, not the body of the post in which you should say either something on topic or something like “Hey Simmons I like it when you put girly pictures in your articles because your taste is redoubtable” and I’ll hook you up with an invite. What that means exactly for our social networking relationship I don’t yet understand, but whatever, G+ baby, free invites.
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About The Author
Doug Simmons
Biographical info.. hmm. I have a history of not being able to strike the balance between what is "safe" to put into these forms and what is, in my mind at least, funny. Can't do it.
No app yet, but…I just realized that with the new groups feature in WP Mango, I have google circles on my phone! Which is really nice to not have to read through all the crap that some of my so called “friends/pages” put on their walls.
But still would be nice to use it if someone would give me a frackin invite!
In closing, while these percentages are great Doug, It’s easier to get good numbers when your running a closed program, most people that are getting in to test are the tech savvy people that know what’s going on and how to use it. When they open things up to the world these numbers may drop a bit don’t ya think??
Well obviously the honeymoon is over but it hit critical mass and, though taking longer and longer to hit each new million mark, and this experimentation you mention probably cooling down too, but I don’t see it decelerating into attrition, particularly from lifting the invite thing. Maybe if thirty million is big enough more people might gravitate to it just because they’re satisfied that it’s got enough of their friends or Google contacts on it to take it for a spin.
Sent you that frackin invite by the way.
@Doug Simmons: Joined! Though sad to see so few of my friends (though I only have 3, one of which is you Doug) are on there. For widespread takeover they have to sell to women, I’m sorry to say that, but there’s gonna have to be a reason for people to gravitate to it, and generally women post more than men. They need the women there to start posting content, that’s what will drive a switch.
The main selling point I give people is easy way to catch up and see content from people you care about, some more than others obviously. But my wife is always posting pics of the kids, vacations, birthdays, parties and the like. I do, and I know there are people out there, men included that post way more than I do, but to keep up with my friends I go to fb, because the content is there.
Now if someone could build an app to aggregate all the google feeds in with other social networks I think that would help adoption rate.
Yeah well maybe if you had a Google account you would be looking at a more seemless acclimation into G+ society, with your contacts and all. And everything else you do on or with Google, from Picasa to Latitude — it’s more like what doesn’t tie in, which off hand, and this is irritating, includes Google Apps accounts. Gotta be Gmail.
One thing that I think may be a selling point to many about this is how the API is still closed and that, for example, at least to my knowledge, websites like this aren’t yet just using G+ to dump URLs of new articles all the time and retweet and all that. The content, better signal to noise. I’m guessing from my few glances and what I’ve read and what I assume about Google — I still haven’t gotten my hands dirty with this thing yet.
The women will come slowly now that the geek infestation may be plateauing, might trend toward facebook demographics soon.
As for people developing apps in spite of the lack of an open API, there’s always the good ol’ scra-PI technique or whatever, like this thing which is kind of impressive given the limitations. I’m not a programmer but my senses tell me that’s impressive and indicitative of the possibility of things like what you want turning up regardless of how Google decides to swing it.
I appreciate your distracting me from today’s non-tech news of which we mustn’t speak here for some reason I don’t fully appreciate.
There is a Chrome and Firefox add-on that will add your Facebook news and Twitter feeds into G+. However, it seems there was an API change recently so it currently is not working.
I wish they’d fix it soon, though. That was nice to have.
Because you two are being pleasant, I’ll take a break from baiting flame in taking my stock market rage out against Microsoft fans in some article and instead turn this into a half G+ discussion half G+ invite request entertainment thread.
If you want an invite, speak up and I’ll hook you up, but don’t post your email in the body of your message obviously.
I’ve got on G+ shortly after it hit the streets, and have a few friends in various circles. But it still seems like people aren’t really sure what to do with it. Of course if Simmons were in my circles I bet I’d see more action lolol
Actually you wouldn’t really. I’ve smartened up enough in life to realize that I’m just too stupid to be trusted by myself running around doing sort of what I do here but less restrained and also further in front of my ..
I just feel that, due to my excessively chronic and overly critical lapses in judgment, this social networking thing is too great a liability to me to engage to deeply with it.
Whatever few of my friends, who were talking about G+ when it started, have completely stopped even mentioning it now. And I have a lot of them who are google aficionados. I guess they’re embarassed already for pimping a service which doesn’t bring anything to the table which isn’t already available. Nothing against google for trying again and again to get an FITD on the social scene, and the UX may also be nice etc., but who needs another social service? I would also speculate that the plateauing out of FB usage that you see may even be due to people getting bored of the entire social bandwagon. I wonder how Foursquare, Gowalla or Facebook places are faring, but there doesn’t seem to be much talk about them either.
In the middle to long term, I see people mostly tolerating whatever service they (and their friends) are on and the social scenario moving towards integration between existing services. That is where G+ is likely to lose out, given the penchant of google for going it alone and/or their inability to come to terms with other players (or bring them to google’s terms).
“I would also speculate that the plateauing out of FB usage that you see may even be due to people getting bored of the entire social bandwagon”
LOL! It’s easier to plateau when you’re closing in on 800 million users than it is when you haven’t even hit 30 million. I’m sure Doug doesn’t understand that. Google+ usage from people who did signed up is already trending downward.
But you may be right. The whole social network stuff has gotten old and stale. Then again, I never got into the whole social network crap to begin with. Sooner or later it will all collapse, and people will lose interest. Or something new and hip will come along and replace it.
Frankly, I’m glad Microsoft hasn’t tried to delve to much into this area. Unlike Google, Microsoft doesn’t need to try and do everything under the sun.
@Doug Simmons:
Your Microsoft hating BS has nothing to do with stock market rage and you know it. It has everything to do with you being a blind Google sycophant.
Joe: As you can see right here by the overwhelming influx of requests in this thread for an invite to this exclusive wonderful service, G+ has plenty of steam to carry it straight through the billion mark in the US alone.
Glad someone’s at least making an effort to come up with another word for fanboy, even though I suppose being a sycophant in general is worse. It’s just refreshing.
Market’s up by the way.
Not to mention all the G+ +1s this pro-Google+ article has already received.
Ok…one thing I don’t get. On the Android App you can view “nearby” streams from
whomever has made public posts within your geographical area…whether or not you know them or they’re in your circles.
On the website, I haven’t found where you can view public posts at all? Am I just overlooking something?
@Doug Simmons: You’ve been called ‘Sycophany’ pretty often on here. No witty comment to follow, just an observation.
Something that’s worth noting, Normally social websites that “blow up,” do so via the strength of another site. I got on facebook because someone on myspace told me to. I saw my first twitter reference on facebook. I visited tumblr for the first time because it was in someone’s twitter profile. Out of the box growth is something that Google would have gotten anywhere. Google could make a Sesame Street competitor named Tapioca Place and I’m sure it would initially test through the roof. .
The problem is that they can’t maintain it.
I was so sure of Wave that I sent out invites to everyone I knew. The project was way too ambitious. Buzz is too much like Twitter, G+ is too much like facebook. If anyone is paying attention to these words, and you are looking for the next big thing, do it with movies and TV on a grand scale. Integrate Hulu and Twitter and you got something (Hint Hint Sony/Tristar) . Or, since NetFlix is already partners with Microsoft, and MS is already partners with FB, Make FB/Netflix with chat. Hell, host cloud movies for your friends aka sell server space via subscription and kick a piece to the movie companies. Make movie night a social experience without having to leave the house.
I’ve got ideas man…
-Fight
I was in love with it from the first day i was on it (about day2). on the female comment, that might be right. Sort of like how clubs give ladies free cover, so that more men will come and buy drinks. I guess for me i’m fortunate, because almost all the females i care about are on it already.
I will likely use G+ as sort of my live journal. For communication with friends and acquaintances, and use Facebook as my model and photography networking.
Doug, the world just doesn’t need another social networking site!
Oh yeah? Yeah? Well you know what, in first quarter next year sometime maybe, G+ is coming out with a new API called Pineapple, it’s supposed to be really tart and awesome, and some Latvian social network equipment manufacturer is going to continue their regular Eastern European and Chinese operations but will try out a new G+-based robot in the States maybe next Spring and when that happens, the two combined, woah man hold on to your ass because Facebook is gonna disappear.
Just like WinPho, if you can successfully make the argument that it was at any point apparent.