

Larry Page: Google+ now has 90 million users globally - MRonney
http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/01/19/larry-page-google-now-has-90-million-users/

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mladenkovacevic
I don't doubt that 60% of people use it daily. I personally click on that
+Mladen button a couple of times a day at least. But I'm not so sure that they
are using it in the same way as Facebook or Twitter.. that is to say for
personal communication with their friends.

None of my friends are on Google+. But there are tons of really smart people
that I don't know personally (although I wish I did), who post lots of great
content for me to read, and consider and discuss. With this personal
experience in mind, I believe the 60% are using it as a content discovery
platform, not so much as a social network.. sort of like another
Reddit/Twitter

~~~
ajross
That sounds about right to me. Though obviously there's a spectrum there. One
assumes Google's hope is that as the adoption grows, the "None of my friends
are on" problem will progressively disappear. When some of your friends _are_
on G+, you'll start posting stuff there. And until then it's a cool way to
learn about the restaurants frequented by Lennart Poettering.

~~~
kingkawn
When it first launched all of my friends joined and began to post, including
the many without facebook accounts due to tight gmail integration. But within
a month or two almost all of them stopped posting. Whether they will come back
is the question, a profoundly different one than whether they will join at
all.

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xxbondsxx
I'd be interested to see what they define as "daily engagement," for it's a
fairly ambiguous term. Clicking on a personalized result in Google search is
far different than actively going to the G+ home page and engaging in a
conversation. Likewise, starting a hangout is far different than merely +1-ing
a foreign page on the internet.

Although all of these actions interact with G+, only few are true metrics of
social network success. The key is to drive _social_ interaction, to be the #1
resource of where you friends and family interact. I think G+ still has a wall
to climb in that sense.

Let's not forget their average visit length:

[http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/6a00d83451b36c69e...](http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/6a00d83451b36c69e20168e5695543970c-450wi.png?w=604)

I have a lot of hope for G+ but this reminds me of the premature "Mission
Accomplished" banner.

~~~
loceng
Similar questions should be raised regarding all other companies boasting
their engagement rates. Hit a site with Facebook widhets and comments? Do they
consider that engagement? _shrug_

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Aloisius
I'm shocked, just shocked by the speed of Google+ adoption.

Who knew that leveraging a near monopoly by bundling your product could give
you access to a new market?

~~~
forgotusername
I'm almost surprised the number is so low, given how difficult it is to log
into a Google Account and even run a web search without accidentally stumbling
onto one of the prolific set of lead-ins it has now.

~~~
pork
This will most likely continue to happen in the form of tighter integrations,
continually boosting the engagement number, until an antitrust lawsuit causes
G+ to split off into it's own company. I suppose the bet is that by then,
there will be enough momentum for network effects to take care of the rest.
Like Google+ or not, it's a pretty nifty, calculated strategy.

~~~
ajross
Mere integration isn't sufficient to justify an antitrust action. There needs
to be a trust (monopoly) involved somewhere. There is, of course, and right
now that monopoly is named "Facebook". Things would have to change radically
for antitrust regulators to become interested.

~~~
sounds
A monopoly is defined as a seller with no competitors (in their market).
Facebook would be a monopoly if its user were _forced_ to log in to facebook,
use its software, or give it money.

Ergo facebook is not a monopoly.

It's ironic that I would have to define monopoly here - I personally have a
great deal of distaste for facebook's actions. In my opinion they engage in
highly deceptive business practices. Their users are unaware of the damage to
their privacy stemming from facebook's actions.

But unethical or distasteful practices do not imply a monopoly. Google does
not have a monopoly either - if you prefer not to use their services, use Bing
or Baidu or DuckDuckGo ...

I understand that facebook and google embed javascript on other pages. So
download the requestpolicy firefox addon. Or disable javascript. And cookies.
I think you can see my point: you, the customer, can spend your money and your
bandwidth (= money) other places if you prefer.

~~~
streptomycin
> Facebook would be a monopoly if its user were _forced_ to log in to
> facebook, use its software, or give it money.

That's not what a monopoly is. By that definition, no company has ever been a
monopoly.

~~~
rieter
Microsoft is a clear monopoly.

Many people and businesses have no choice but to use Windows. It's nearly
impossible to buy a computer without Windows, especially if you're picky about
configurations. Even if the choice exists (Apple), switching involves
considerable costs: buying all new hardware, moving to different application
software, retraining personel, dealing will legacy and proprietary file
formats.

In contrast, moving to a different search engine is easy and free. There are
no barriers to switch.

~~~
sounds
Whether you agree or disagree, if you have something constructive to add, why
not comment?

Downmodding us adds almost nothing to the discussion.

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luckyisgood
Google+ will be successful because it attracts meaningful conversations and
motivated users. It took the best from Twitter and Facebook and added its own
flair, making it the most contagious, fun and informative social network I
have ever participated in.

~~~
potater
True that, particularly on the meaningful conversation side of things. Like
many, I initially approached G+ as a kind of Facebook. I focused on basically
friends, coworkers, acquaintances - personal relationships developed through
assorted means. That was neat in having a replacement for my Facebook account,
but I kept on hearing about noteworthy commentary being posted via links to G+
on hn, reddit, etc so I started exploring with new non-friend circles.

After branching out to my immediate interest areas (tech), a little later I
ended up adding Philip Plait (bad astronomy guy), Fraser Cain and other
sciencey/astronomy folks. The amazing Hangouts that these folks do a number of
times/week makes me feel really lucky to have access to such a resource.
Certainly having some degree of access to experts in assorted fields is
nothing new thanks to the internets, but G+ has, in my view, made such
interactions far more accessible.

I can only imagine that there are other groups doing awesome things with G+
who I have not yet found.

~~~
luckyisgood
The photographers seem to be having a strong community on G+ and G+ is the
place where us amateurs can be exposed to their awesomeness. And talented
those people are.

In the last few months, I have noticed many HN posts linking to Google+ posts.
G+ is becoming a strong blogging platform and because Google is pushing
rel=author so hard, soon it won't matter WHERE you wrote it (domain), it will
matter WHO wrote it (author). That's why I see A+ bloggers adopting G+ soon.

~~~
potater
Ooh, I heard about photographers taking to the network, but forgot to check it
out. I'll give it a look. Thanks for the heads up!

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turing
Listening to the earnings call. Did Larry just say that 60% of members use the
service daily, with 80% engaging at least once a week? Wow.

~~~
EwanToo
How many are "engaging" by doing a Google search while logged in, and seeing a
Google+ result?

Maybe I'm just getting cynical..

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wbkang
from [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/google-
claims-90...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/google-
claims-90-million-google-users-60-active-
daily.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29):

(UPDATE: We've confirmed what some readers suspected: the 60 and 80 percent
figures refer to users accessing any Google service—whether it be search,
Gmail or something else—while logged in to their Google account, and do not
necessarily indicate actual usage of Google+ each day or week. The 90 million
figure refers not to active users, but to the total number of people who have
created Google+ accounts.)

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badclient
If Google launched a web-based Notepad clone and pushed it like they push
Google+, it'd probably get just as many users. More importantly, the users
might actually find the app useful.

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mathattack
I view it as a non-entity and I am a large user of social networks. I spent 30
minutes building circles and gave up when nobody posted. It doesn't add enough
to be useful. Its not Friendster yet, but....

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Hominem
I'm really starting to like G+. I added the HN circle so now my stream is full
of tech stuff. I may never even add personal friends, just let all the baby
talk stay on Facebook.

~~~
creativityland
Yes, but it is all relevant to who your friends are on Facebook. Maybe time to
remove some friends on FB? ;)

My stream on fb is fairly informative and useful.

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dotcoma
Remember the times when Google didn't have to brag about the small stuff?

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nextparadigms
A few more months and it will probably surpass Twitter. How many users does
Twitter have about now? 120 million?

~~~
ken
According to Wolfram Alpha, 200 million.

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gtzi
Question is, how many out of them actually use it.

~~~
resnamen
RTFA: "Google’s Larry Page has announced that Google+ now has 90 million users
globally, doubling the number from three months ago. Page also said that G+
has a 60% ‘daily engagement’ rate. This came as a part of Google’s Q4 and
fiscal year 2011 financial reports."

~~~
creativityland
60% daily engagement rate including Google personalized search? ;)

~~~
guywithabike
I think this is a completely legitimate question.

The fact that they're starting to throw up weasel words tells me that the "60%
daily engagement rate" figure might not be exactly what you think it means.
I'd be much more interested if they'd tell us exactly how many people log in
and at least view their timeline every day. I'm not interested in how many
people hit personalized search every time they do a search because they happen
to be logged in.

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j45
Oh, snap. The reported death(s) of G+ seem to be greatly exaggerated.

I know some folks are saying there's a lot of fake accounts on G+ but I think
that's true for the same percentage, if not more across all social networks.

~~~
j45
So, downvoters, was it anything I said? :)

