
Google+ is now the second largest social platform by active users - moultano
https://plus.google.com/u/0/106382433884876652170/posts/hxWNwxYoLYQ
======
dangero
This could be a little bit invalid because of things like Hangouts. My dev
team has started using Google Hangouts as a free alternative to conference
Skype. I bet I'm considered an "active" Google+ user because I have
participated in a Hangout. It gets posted to my Google+ wall every time I do
it.

I'm actually kind of annoyed every time I have to log onto Google+ to do
something because I know they are about to add me to some press release
statistic. There's something "evil" about that in my opinion.

Google's strategy is putting them in danger of becoming more hated than
Facebook. At least I intentionally signed up for Facebook. Who at Google
thinks they are going to beat Facebook by forcing anyone who uses Google
services to be a part of Google+? It feels very Windows 95 let's integrate the
browser into the kernel in the sense that I know as a user, this Google+
portion is not necessary to the product I'm trying to use, but it's being
forced on me anyways. Same thing happens every time I'm on Youtube now. No, I
don't want my Google+ page updated when I watch a video on Youtube, nor do I
want to use my "true identity" when browsing Youtube, nor do I want to explain
why I don't want to do that in a way that fits into Google's 4 prefabbed
reasons that don't seem to include, "I'd just like to be anonymous, now get
off my back about it."

The rate their going, I wouldn't be surprised if by next year something will
be posted to Google+ when I read my Gmail and I'll be an "Active User".

What ever happened to making your product better so that people want to use it
instead of "tricking" them into being a part of it?

~~~
cromwellian
There's really a lot of hyperbole in these discussions.

Apple gives you a single signon for their App Store, iCloud, and many of their
other services. It unifies your interaction with Apple related HW and services
to a single identity. Does it anger you that Apple forces you to sign into
your AppStore account to use iCloud when they could be separate? Facebook is
used by many sites as a signon credential (which is what I mostly use it for).

For the most part, all of this talk about Google "forcing" you to use G+ to
access their other services is really about promoting a single signon,
centralized account profile, instead of having different accounts on different
properties. This yields a consistent user interface, and centralized location
for you to view what information Google knows about you for all their
services, and how to delete or export it. You can choose to not "sign in" on
some of the properties, for example, legacy YouTube logins still work, but
honestly, is it really better for the user if you had a different account for
YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Drive, etc and had to log into all of them separately?
For example, having Google Wallet linked to your profile lets you buy
something on YouTube, in Google Play, or elsewhere, without fumbling with a
credit card.

Unlike some of Facebook's services/apps, Google does not automatically share
your activity on some news feed every time you do something on their sites,
you have to specifically choose to share it. Indeed, it appears G+ doesn't
want to pollute the feed with lots of autopublished stuff which interferes
with S/N search quality, which is one reason theorized as to why no "write"
API exists yet.

G+ is plus.google.com, if you are on other properties signed in, then the
biggest benefit is having the Share button be able to pull your contacts,
combined with a single place to manage your settings for everything.

In many cases you have a choice. You can use Chrome without signin. You have
incognito windows. YouTube doesn't require signin unless the video is NSFW,
etc.

I for one, appreciate the "G+ as a common layer across Google Websites" for
the purposes of unified profile/single-signon. The plus.google.com newsfeed
service is just one addition service you can either choose to use or not. It's
best not to think of G+ as a social network + activity stream like Facebook.

~~~
taligent
There is a lot of hyperbole. And also a lot of ignorance as in your post.

Today on Youtube. I am signed in and wanted to bookmark a video I just saw. I
can't do that without them creating a PUBLIC Google Plus account with my FULL
NAME even though I am already logged in.

Care to explain that one ?

~~~
abraham
That is because you are signed into YouTube using your Google account and not
a YouTube account. If you create a YouTube account that you sign into using
your Google account you would be prompted to update to Google+ but would not
be required to.

------
pilif
When G+ initially came out, everybody here was excited to have an alternative
to Facebook. Posts about their increasing user numbers were celebrated and
everybody was excited.

Then it became clear that Google, like Facebook was going to force people to
use real names and since then, everybody likes to hate on G+. Whatever they do
is said to be even more evil and whenever they or others publish user numbers,
everybody is explaining how the data must be wrong and how G+ is a ghost town
and a failure.

Can't we just be honest here? Yes. The real name policy sucks. But does this
mean the whole G+ is a failure and every evidence to the contrary must be
wrong? Just because you dislike it doesn't mean everybody does.

~~~
fiendsan
That's actually the only reason i dont care about google+ , the real name
policy doesnt only suck its freaking dangerous!!!! cause if facebook goes
after your account, so what, you lose some pictures and posts? but you can
make a new one and find your friends fast! its bothersome, when google goes
after your account, you lose your mail, your documents, your adwords, your
adsense, your android.... its a web apocalipse, and for what? for not using
your real name? wtf is that! so i dont think avoiding google+ is a question of
dislike, more like a preemptive attempt to keep your valuable data safe.

~~~
timothya
Please don't spread misinformation. If Google has a problem with your name,
they will at most prevent you from using Google+ until you fix it. The other
Google products you use will be unaffected.

~~~
nikhilp
[https://plus.google.com/116098411511850876544/posts/4t8sFLLK...](https://plus.google.com/116098411511850876544/posts/4t8sFLLK4hK)

~~~
timothya
If it ever were the case that Google would lock you out entirely, that is no
longer the policy (nor has it been for a long time). A lot of the early
reports that people were getting locked out of Google were centered around one
person, who claimed to have been locked out from Google over his name, but it
turned out the lockout was because he'd uploaded questionable images to his
account (I can't find a link at the moment, but here is Matt Cutts alluding to
it:
[https://plus.sandbox.google.com/u/1/+MattCutts/posts/NNJduMF...](https://plus.sandbox.google.com/u/1/+MattCutts/posts/NNJduMFjFKS)).

The policy, for the record, is here (see the bottom of the page):
[http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe...](http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1228271)

~~~
fiendsan
:\ you are joking right! did you read the policy? i'll quote "If your profile
is suspended, you will not be able to make full use of Google services that
require an active profile such as Google+, Reader and Picasa. This will not
prevent you from using other Google services, like Gmail. Your profile can be
restored by editing your name and submitting an appeal that will be reviewed
by our team, as directed by on-screen instructions."

soooo nothing has changed! if they dont like your name or if you dont have a
good enough proof bye bye!!! im not spreading misinformation, my coment is
still pretty much valid, there is still to this day a chance that by signing
up to Google+ that they will suspend your account!

------
hosay123
According to the definition from the source document, visiting this link is
probably sufficient for you to be counted as a Google+ user.

~~~
Kylekramer
Is there any measurement of social networks that doesn't count people viewing
a web page on the social network as a user?

~~~
hosay123
A social network that does nothing but serves web pages isn't a "social
network", it is a "web server"

A social network that does nothing but allow the user make use of web
applications is not a "social network", it is often called an "application
server", or perhaps still "web server".

A social network as originally defined, was a particular kind of web
application where one could describe real-life relationships to a machine
which would then attempt to assist the user in maintaining those
relationships, for example by sharing drunk shots or funny cat videos.

Google+, in almost all its integrations with other Google products, does not
count as a "social network" in the traditional sense -- rendering a "G+"
button in an endless series of places where it might accidentally be clicked
does not constitute helping the user maintain real world relationships.
Forcing users of older web applications to create a Google+ account in order
to remain a user of that older web application does not constitute helping the
user maintain real world relationships. Integrating arbitrary applications
tightly with Google+ does not unconditionally constitute helping the user
maintain real world relationships.

In every conceivable way Google+ is a failure as a social network: almost
everyone uses Facebook for what Google+ tries and fails to achieve, these
"stats" only serve to highlight this each time they appear in the news. In the
meantime, it has turned into some kind of mediocre blogging platform, except
it doesn't support RSS (because that would encourage people to never visit the
site – undistorting the stats against Google's favour).

To count me as a "social network user" I would first expect said network to
have helped me maintain real life relationships somehow – Facebook does this,
and not by pilfering my Gmail address book, not by tricking me into clicking a
share link while I watch a lolcat on YouTube, not by crippling my favourite
applications (Reader), and least of all not by rendering blog posts.

Google's only successful social applications to date (IMHO) have been Gmail
(including Talk) and Reader, and they already managed to kill one of these in
their panic to beat Facebook.

------
opinali
I'm not sure where GWI gets their information, but the number 343m seems a
good match to G+'s "total actives", as the last result we shared publicly was
235m but that was almost 2 months ago. The number of G+ accounts was already
much bigger due to migration, but the number of "stream actives" (people who
actually used plus.google.com, or the mobile clients, in the last 30 days) was
lower at 135m (again, on Dec 6). Current numbers are bigger, the stream
actives may or may not already be in the ballpark of GWI's claim, but AFAIK we
didn't yet share new numbers after Dec 6. Rest assured though that when we
officially share "stream active" numbers, it's real stuff no tricks.

GWI's comparison is difficult because not all social networks disclose the
number of strictly active users -- how many people recently checked their
stream/profile/whatever. Most notably, Facebook only publishes the biggest
stat of total number of open accounts.

~~~
opinali
s/profile/timeline

------
jyap
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Here is the blog post to the "report":
[http://globalwebindex.net/thinking/social-platforms-
gwi-8-up...](http://globalwebindex.net/thinking/social-platforms-gwi-8-update-
decline-of-local-social-media-platforms/)

According to the article: “Active Usage” (defined as “Used or contributed to
in the past month”).

Now according to Wikipedia (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail>): As of June
2012, it (Gmail) is the most widely used web-based email provider with over
425 million active users worldwide.

Do you really believe that 80% of Gmail users are "active" Google+ users?

~~~
mctx
I'd love to see some statistics relating to time spent on the site, or number
of page views. I suspect that G+ would be orders of magnitudes lower than
Facebook

~~~
paganel
> I suspect that G+ would be orders of magnitudes lower than Facebook

Ignoring Facebook here, this chart should give them food for thought:
[https://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=instagram%2C%2...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=instagram%2C%20google%2B%2C%20tumblr&date=1%2F2010%2037m&cmpt=q)

~~~
taligent
Explains the recent move to trick all the YouTube users into signing up for
Google+.

I mean seriously why does creating a private video playlist require a public
Google+ page.

~~~
blablabla123
I stopped using Youtube's customization features years ago.

I don't want everybody to know what kind of music I listen to and what my
interests are like. Google does not seem to get that. In fact I might stop
using Youtube completely soon, except for watching linked Videos. As we all
know a login is necessary to watch Videos that are not for children.

In fact Google search has become weird since they more or less half-publicly
track which sites I'm visiting from Google. Seriously, this has to stop.

------
jonathanberger
It just doesn't matter how many stats they release. The stat just doesn't
"feel" true. I have never read a report from anyone who has signed into Google
Plus, who has reported anyone but Google employees or their friends using the
service.

The only thing bragging about statistics from the service does is make people
trust Google less. It does not further engender confidence in Google Plus.

I agree with those that point out that Google Plus is counting "active" users
in fallacious method. Common sense of millions of users has to square with the
stats companies are releasing. Facebook's? They make sense. Google's? They
just don't.

~~~
saraid216
Your comment doesn't "feel" true to me. But I'm signed into Google Plus on a
daily basis and while it turned out that one of my coworkers is married to a
Googler, she's the only Googler I interact with on a semi-regular basis. And I
pretty much _met_ her through G+; it was months later that we actually met in
real life.

------
blablabla123
Is there a correlation to Google asking me yesterday to merge my Youtube
account with my Google account?

------
Sami_Lehtinen
Google+ posts are rated unsurprisingly much higher in Google results than
Facebook posts.

~~~
jrockway
Facebook's robots.txt looks pretty restrictive:

<http://facebook.com/robots.txt>

Their sitemap doesn't even load for me.

(I don't use Facebook so I don't know how much this covers, but it's an
interesting read compared to <http://plus.google.com/robots.txt.>)

~~~
nwh

       User-agent: *
       Disallow: /
    

Yep, pretty much everything.

------
VeejayRampay
Google+ is the most thriving dead platform of the web. People keep on calling
it an empty playground and it keeps on growing. Man are people going to
turncoat on this shit if it finally makes it HUGE some day.

~~~
taligent
Google can try and force Google+ down the throats of every unsuspecting Gmail
or YouTube user. But you know what it isn't an authentic sign up. It is
"tricking the user".

And it may work in the short term but it sure as hell won't work in the long
term.

~~~
VeejayRampay
Yeah, I can see that. I don't know about you though, but I've had the feeling
that people really are engaging more on Google+ than they were before. And
it's a different demographic too, one that I like better. More technical
people and more refined discussions. Just my opinion though, nothing about
Facebook per se.

~~~
blablabla123
Google+ encourages Blog-style postings. (I don't know how they do it, but it
seems natural -- more natural than on FB.) After all Google+ is pretty cool
for people who don't want a private life, unfortunately I don't belong to this
group.

~~~
saraid216
They do it by not bringing up the word "friend" everywhere, actually. Compare
Wordpress versus Livejournal; the latter is practically a synonym for emo
angst, even though there are strong intellectual posts on the site, but the
former doesn't have such a connotation. The problem with having a network with
your friends is that there's a natural echo chamber that inhibits really high
quality discussion. It's not impossible, but it's a lot harder.

By touting circles as a way to follow completely random people, smart people
who want smart posts will naturally gravitate towards other such people and it
causes a network effect: at minimum, lots of sharing; at maximum, heavy duty
responses.

My favorite circled person in my 2000-odd list is some random academic in
Idaho who I saw make a comment one day and decided to add.
<https://plus.google.com/112482032780181267192/posts>

------
zenuts
i still remember how people dismissed facebook b/c "everyone was on myspace"
or that an average person would never use twitter.

google+ is bound to grow b/c people love google products and the new google is
trying to integrate these products for a better end user experience. as a
heavy google user i can easily see that.

------
rjd
Wheres the MSN Live/Skype/Xbox network?

------
cloudwalking
What is considered an active user?

~~~
IvyMike
If you follow the links to the source Globalwebindex doc, they defined it as
"Used or contributed to in the past month".

~~~
taligent
So Google is counting YouTube users who save videos to their playlist as
"active users".

Absolutely disgraceful. I feel sorry for advertisers that are going to be
tricked by this.

~~~
opinali
Read my other reply.

------
taylodl
And we care why?

------
martinced
This entire discussion here reminds me back when GMail touted 30 million
users. "It's still a beta", "They'll never get as much users as hotmail or
Yahoo! Mail!", "People just signed up to try it!", etc.

Now they're the most used webmail and people aren't disputing it anymore.

Same when they bought YouTube: "Google is going bankrupt, they bought a money
drain, game over Google".

On my statistically insignificant level, I do see my contacts (the ones who
are both on FB and on G+) post more interesting stuff on G+ and less and less
things on FB. The one thing people do still post are vacation brags "Been
there, done that, 30 deg Celsius here, must suck to be at home for you guys"
and the classic "I hate noodles, now I have diarrhea, life is a bitch"
followed by "Like"s and "Be strong mate, you'll be ok soon".

That and people who hardly post anymore because of FB security concerns who
then post stuff explaining how to harden FB security settings ; )

~~~
graue
People _liked_ Gmail, though. It was a product everyone loved, a major upgrade
for webmail. Google+, on the other hand, has some cool features but is also a
cudgel that Google is beating us over the head with if we want to post YouTube
comments, Google Local reviews or Play Store app reviews, none of which ought
to require using a real name. As Gmail users we're constantly nagged to
"upgrade" to Plus. These are legitimate reasons to dislike G+; it's not just
jealousy.

~~~
zenuts
i think you are missing the point. using real names decreases spam as was a
known problem with app reviews/ratings on play store.

i do agree that google+ would be even more awesome if they had post or reply
as "anonymous" feature like in quora.

