

Google+'s Numbers Aren't as Impressive as Everyone Thinks - llambda
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/07/google-s-numbers-arent-as-impressive-as-everyone-thinks/242375/

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tbh2347
Nice to see some objective reporting here - goes ahead to call Paul Allen
"clearly a Google+ fanboy" and tries to relate 750 million to 1 billion.

"[I]s it as big a deal as people are making it out to be? Yes, Google+ might
end up being the fastest growing website of all time, but Facebook and Twitter
primed the pump."

"[U]nless you're counting Friendster and MySpace and all of those other
networks that have since failed, Facebook is the pioneer in social networking;
it's slower growth is understandable. The fact that it grew as fast as it did,
actually, is kind of unbelievable."

First, we're just going to ignore companies that fail now? Hindsight is 20/20,
MySpace was a _huge_ competitor at the time. More importantly, I don't really
see how having existing competitors in a space IMPROVES your chances of
adoption. Google+ isn't "that newfangled social networking thing", it's that
"new Facebook thing," and if anything the adoption effect is reversed.

What I don't get is this author's apparent agenda against Google+ - he even
says "No matter how you measure it, 20 million or so visitors is a lot of
visitors." so the article is really about downplaying how important 20 million
is. I'm all for criticizing Google+, and it'll be interesting to see if the
same exponential growth associated with social networks will occur when
there's a big existing competitor. Let's just find more important things to
criticize?

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Turing_Machine
"Google+ making it nearly impossible to import Facebook friends"

Uhh... no. Try "Facebook making it nearly impossible to export your friends".
How could it possibly benefit Google for them to make it hard to import your
friends?

Did the author even think before writing this?

