

Google+ continues battle with fading user interest - jeremyjarvis
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/11/google-plus-traffic.html

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rmrm
I'm sure the trend lines look about the same, but the absolute numbers have to
be quite a bit off as they aren't including black navbar induced visits.

I'm not a big G+ user, I followed a bunch of people who post publicly, I visit
maybe once a day just to see if there is something interesting...but my visits
are probably 15-1 nav bar to clicking a G+ link somewhere in the open web.

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rexf
After the recent Google Reader update where they removed Reader's social
features in favor of G+, people are now actually using G+ to +1 RSS items.
Before the G+ integration, you could see over 100 people "liked" each xkcd
post. Now, all that activity has shifted over to people +1'ing each post (to
the tune of thousands of +1's per xkcd post).

I wonder what the breakout for follower dynamics looks like between Twitter,
G+ and Facebook. In my limited anecdotal experience, Twitter is great for
celebrities to mass advertise themselves with huge follower counts. G+ is
niche enough that you can communicate back and forth and be heard on posts.
Nobody uses Fb's subscribe feature.

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pgroves
The reasoning in the article is a bit off for evaluating the popularity of a
website. Saying the usage has dropped in 11 of 21 isn't surprising. Many
websites gain users in a pattern of big spikes, followed by steep drops, but
with the new plateau higher than the before the spike.

When it's a blog, the big spikes come when posts goes viral. I'm not sure what
would be the big spikes for google+ now that the public launch has happened.
Maybe just a bunch of little spikes in their case.

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jezclaremurugan
I don't know but i kind of find the linux kernel, debian, or rather the linux
community in general quite active there. Its seems to be a wonderful platform
for blogging and sharing in public, but less of a facebook type of a hangout.
Moreover, the posts there have more active discussions than similar posts in
tumblr or blogger.

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webwanderings
I got on board early, hoping that friends and family will eventually move over
from Facebook. A handful did in the beginning but eventually I realized that
nobody is moving from Facebook. I eventually turned my G+ off completely. I
think Google just doesn't know Social and they will eventually be folding.

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beza1e1
Why do you prefer Google to Facebook?

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webwanderings
You mean Facebook over Google? I don't prefer it, but that's where most of the
average Internet users are.

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jdp23
The early data appears to show usage increasing until the pseudonym purges
started -- which is also when the press coverage shifted from glowing to
mixed.

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rman666
G+ is too damn confusing. That is all.

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patd
The circle feature, while nice, makes it look like a ghost town.

I don't put people that are not on G+ in my circles so when they sign up, they
see an empty feed. Facebook knows that you need a minimum amount of friends in
order to find the service useful. With G+ and the circles, this threshold is
higher and more difficult to reach as there are less users.

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AznHisoka
Google+ needed to make something useful for people with few to no friends. To
at least counter the chicken and egg issue.

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thinkdevcode
Search for topics that interest you... add those people to a circle.. voila -
you have a bunch of people you can share things and discuss with. I have a
circle of VC's & angels, a circle for Python enthusiasts, a circle of C#/.NET
enthusiasts, etc. My stream is always full of new and interesting discussions.

I don't think G+ will be a "social network" like Facebook. And that's a good
thing. There's a reason im not on Facebook but I still use Twitter and G+. A
lot of the people I talk to feel the same way.

What's more interesting to you... A) Reading about your friend's drama issues
or B) Reading about the latest, coolest startups and technologies?

A) Facebook B) G+

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AznHisoka
neither, i don't want to hear about my friend's dramas or about startup
successes. both made me irritated or jealous =)

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yanw
It depends on who is spinning the news, see:

 _Google+ Sees Its 3rd Largest Week Since Launch_
[http://searchengineland.com/report-google-sees-its-3rd-
large...](http://searchengineland.com/report-google-sees-its-3rd-largest-week-
since-launch-101380)

G+ is bigger than Istagram and Foursquare combined yet Google bashing persists
for some reason.

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Wazzup12
Having burnt several times more money and time (person years) in engineering
and marketing, G+ can't smile about being bigger than Instagram!

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yanw
Why not? it's younger than Intagram and one has to start somewhere. Also it's
natural fit for Google, they have disparate social feature for disparate
products and now they can unify them, it's mission isn't to kill Facebook.

