

Google+ passes 62 million users. Adding 625,000 new users per day. - lomegor
https://plus.google.com/117388252776312694644/posts/ZcPA5ztMZaj

======
cheald
All the Google+ hate sort of puzzles me. I absolutely _love_ it. It's become
my social media platform of choice, in fact. Maybe it's just that I have
enough interesting people to read that it's worth it to me. I'm not sure.

I've never been a fan of Facebook. I've had an account for years, but that's
pretty much entirely for API testing. I can count the number of things I've
posted to Facebook in the past year on one hand.

Twitter, on the other hand, I really like. It's asymmetric, and lets me engage
in casual conversation with people easily.

Google+ is a great marriage between the two. Long-form posts, comment threads,
rich media integration, topical conversation via hashtags, and both Twitter-
style multicast (public) and more Facebook-style (circle- or individual-
limited) conversation.

I realize I sound like an ad, but that's not my intent. It just works for me.
The complaint I see most often is "nobody's there". If you treat it as a
publishing platform, rather than an RSS reader, it becomes a lot more
attractive, and then that helps to solve the "nobody's there" problem as a
side-effect.

~~~
bodegajed
> All the Google+ hate sort of puzzles me

Because Google became evil. Remember when Microsoft pre-installed IE in
windows? It's the same thing when Google placed G+ in gmail.

~~~
ikirill
I'm afraid I don't follow. Could you elaborate on how that means they became
evil?

~~~
chancho
Because Google has a monopoly on non-shitty free email with GMail, in the same
way that Microsoft has (had?) a monopoly on hardware-independent operating
systems with DOS/Windows. (I wish I was really being sarcastic, you know
because there are actually a billion web-based e-mail alternatives besides
GMail that actually don't suck... right? Anybody know of any? At this point
I'm earnestly inquiring.)

~~~
onemoreact
Gmail might be 'the best', but not enough to get a everyone to switch. So, IMO
it's a question of where your suck threshold than anything specifically wrong
with Hotmail / yahoo.

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timdorr
Users are one thing, _active_ users are another. How many posts are being
made? Are they just signing up for these accounts and never coming back?
There's a reason Facebook and Twitter quote active users when announcing how
many people are actually using their products.

~~~
potatolicious
Indeed. I know _lots_ of people who signed up for G+ to check it out, I only
know _two_ people who still actively post to it. I just checked my news feed,
and it's _entirely_ filled with posts by celebs (famous photographers, web
celebs, Google folks I follow, etc), and two posts by my actual friends.

If this is at all representative, I suspect the percentage of active users to
total users is pretty abysmal.

~~~
jschmitz28
It's definitely way more barren on G+ than Facebook, but I think that part of
this is because on G+, users are more likely to make posts that can only be
seen by a small subset of the total number of users in their circles. On
Facebook, most users still make posts visible to everyone on their friends
list. I personally have a "close friends" circle of about 15 people and we
typically just share content with each other; at the same time I'm seeing
posts from people outside of this circle talking no one ever posts to G+.

Although G+ still has way fewer posts than Facebook, I suspect that it would
need a much higher post rate than Facebook to appear as "active" to users.

~~~
j45
I think you have a really good point about circles being smaller, a side
effect of publishing only to certain circles will result in less updates seen,
no matter how we try to slice it.

I find G+ posts to be generally of much higher quality, especially shared
things.

~~~
nazar
I believe quality of the posts depends on the quality of the people... I
had(since I deactivated both Facebook and G+ accounts of mine) nearly the same
sets of friends both on Facebook and Google+ the last time I checked them, and
the quality of the posts were nearly the same. Actually, most of them were
posting the same things to both platforms.

------
ward
Guess I'll state the question: How many of them actively use it? Yes, yes,
before anyone jumps in with the "but you have to follow interesting people", I
know that side of Google+.

My question is more targetted at all those people that (had to) make an
account for w/e reason, but just don't open it anymore. I can only assume they
are included too, are there estimates to their numbers?

Edit: I _do_ use Google+, I just notice a lot of (seemingly?) 'dead' accounts.

~~~
jsight
I agree... I see more dead accounts than live ones now. I don't think this
service is in the success category at all at the moment.

I still use it fairly actively, though.

~~~
fl3tch
Or maybe they just aren't posting to you? A few months back I read the claim
that there's twice as much private sharing as public.

~~~
jsight
I've heard this argument (mostly from Googlers) before. I don't buy it though,
as I occasionally (rarely now) see friends post things and get zero comments.
The same comments will get tons of comments on Facebook.

This thing has largely failed outside of tech circles and twitter style
(celebrity) newsfeeds at the moment. Hopefully that will change, as I find it
superior to Facebook in virtually every way.

~~~
fl3tch
I'm curious, what are all the ways in which you find it superior? I agree that
circles are better than Facebook friend lists, but G+ seems to lack some
features that others find essential on Facebook, like event creation. I've
heard a lot of people say that's the biggest reason they have a Facebook
account. Also, there's no direct messaging system, at least that I'm aware of.
FB messaging has basically replaced email for a lot of people. I suppose I
could put someone into their own circle, but that seems rather inelegant.

My biggest issue with it is the lag, which is ironic for a product by Google.
Sometimes it takes 30+ seconds for images to load. This significantly affects
the user experience, since I usually don't wait, I just move onto something
else.

~~~
mvgoogler
I'm on the G+ photos team. Do you have an example of a slow loading image? If
you can send me a link I could take a look.

Latency is _definitely_ something we care about.

~~~
fl3tch
Edit: Well wouldn't you know, this just happened:

<http://i.imgur.com/ESojw.png>

Typical of what I see. This is a fresh Firefox profile, no cache, no
extensions. It's also not a network problem, since I don't see this on other
sites, even other Google properties like search or Gmail. It's unique to G+

~~~
mvgoogler
Thanks for the screenshot!

Two quick follow-up questions: On that screenshot, it looks like it's the main
profile picture and the profile picture thumbnails for the circles that are
slow to load (but the images from the stream are loaded). Is that typically
what you see, or is that just what happened in this case?

Do have a sense for whether this happens more often when you're looking at
profiles of people who are in a lot of circles (like Tim O'Reilly)?

Thanks for your help.

------
kenjackson
I really don't want one company to control all of my services. I like that
Google may have my email, MS/Google my search, and Facebook my social -- and
that all three will have to learn to play together.

------
brador
Users? yeah right. More like spammers and bots from the software I've seen on
the blackhat forums.

Spammers have learnt their lesson and now know age is a factor in deciding if
it's a spam account or not and are getting in early and big.

~~~
resnamen
If there are spammers targeting G+, they must be doing a crappy job, because
it hasn't even registered on my radar as a fairly active regular user.

~~~
jsnell
G+ spam would probably be closer to blog spam than email spam. It'd be hard to
get any noticeable volume of direct spam going from a single account given the
asymmetric circle relations. But spam postings would still be useful for e.g.
black hat SEO, or for making a Google account look more valid for the purposes
of abusing other Google services.

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WhatsHisName
I just can't get past the feeling that Google+ violates my privacy. I've
started using Facebook which I ultimately regret because it's invasive, too
controlling, and has stupidity embedded in it. In the end these kinds of
forums are the only ones I find worthwhile anyway. I don't care what my real
friends think about what I like, and don't want anyone else I know to judge
me. Why am I letting people I don't even know control the way I express myself
to my friends anyway?

~~~
kzrdude
I use facebook. Why am I not registering for G+? Well:

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!

------
MarkMc
One measure of the relative popularity of Google+ and Facebook is to compare
the number of 'likes' with '+1s' on a popular page. For example, on the
following page there are currently 64 '+1s' and 260 'likes':
[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/lego-is-for-
girls-12142...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/lego-is-for-
girls-12142011.html?campaign_id=rss_topStories#)

By this measure, Google+ is at 25% of Facebook. I remember when Google+ went
into 'anybody-can-use-it' mode a few months ago it was only around 5%. This
suggests Google+ is doing quite nicely, thank you. But perhaps it is just
showing how Google+ is becoming more popular with spammers...?

~~~
duckfruit
To be fair, the comparison might not be entirely accurate since it is possible
to 'plus one' something while just being a gmail/youtube user -- without
necessarily being an active google+ user.

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dkhenry
I find it funny that people on HN knock Google+ because of the lack of people
on it. While at the same time using HN instead of digg or reddit. Why are you
drawn to Hacker News over the "big" link sites. Wouldn't by your own logic you
use those sites since they have so many more people. Could there be something
enticing about a smaller product with higher quality that you find enjoyable.
Not to say we should promote group think here as there is place for
intelligent dissent, but its very ironic to use one smaller higher quality
alternative while vocally rejecting another.

------
starnix17
Don't forget, if you create a Google account you automatically have a Google+
account.

I made a new Gmail account for my mom a few days, now she has a Google+
account too but I doubt she'll ever touch it.

~~~
akcreek
I have a Google account I use for analytics, webmaster tools, etc... and
Google is always prompting me to turn Google+ on as well. It wasn't automatic
with my account. I had the account before Google+ existed though so maybe it
is just automatic with new signups?

~~~
sirn
Yes. You have to manually cancel the Google Profile and Google+ account for
new signups.

------
tszming
Would be more interesting if Google can provide more meaningful data like
facebook: <https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics>

>> More than 800 million active users

>> More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day

>> On average, more than 250 million photos are uploaded per day

etc.

------
RexRollman
I would love to join Google+ but they still haven't fixed the pseudonym
issues. Twitter it is, I guess.

~~~
zem
yeah, i joined and it's technically a really excellent platform, but i find it
hard to have any real attachment to it without full pseudonym support.

------
alain94040
I was recently forced to create a Google+ account, which I have no intention
of using for now. So I simply typed "follow me on twitter at <adr>" in my
description. So people who bump into my profile know where to find me.

------
Steko
Ok so his data shows 50 mil users Dec 1 and 62 mil users Dec 27 which is easy
to calculate at 460k users a day not 625K.

I'm more then willing to believe that there were 625K+ users for Dec 25 and 26
though to extrapolate users for all of 2012 based on xmas day and the day
after xmas sign ups of 2011 is absurd.

Interest in google plus is fairly flat:

[http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22google%20plus%22...](http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22google%20plus%22%2Creddit%2Clinkedin%2Cflickr%2Cgoogle%2B&date=today%203-m&cmpt=q)

For comparison's sake that is 10% of twitter and twitter is 10% of facebook.

~~~
______
It's fascinating how periodic searches for LinkedIn are -- peaking right
before each quarter ends. Looks like a lot of people are looking for news jobs
right around then.

~~~
tednaleid
Are you looking at the graph in the post you replied to? I see it as weekday
spikes (while people are at work, maybe recruiters?) and weekend slumps. Not
quarterly spikes. Though I agree that the pattern is fascinating :).

------
matmann2001
Those numbers sound great, but they don't really mean anything unless those
users are contributing content and establishing a community within Google+. It
takes all of 10 seconds to become a member, but Google+ needs a better way of
encouraging new users to complete their profile information, make posts, and
add their friends.

------
edpark1
I wonder if Facebook is becoming the new Myspace in terms of quality of
content shared. With Google you have the sense that some people are using it
to replace their blogs and possibly connecting on a more professional level
whereas Facebook is more about catching up with others and sharing random
thoughts/opinions via short messages and likes/dislikes. The first one to have
a tighter integration with Twitter and has the most adoption among Twitter
users will win. Linkedin --> Google + <\--- Facebook Also another thing,
Google App users are already opted in by default and with more and more
companies using Google Apps, that only reinforces the more professional
connections.

------
bad_user
What I don't like about Google+ is that they already have a spam problem.

~~~
resnamen
What does G+ spam look like?

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Semiapies
I think the big sign of growth for G+ is its growing pains. Hangout and other
components simply don't perform as well as they did when it was a brand-new
service.

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spiredigital
Google+'s killer feature (at least from what I've seen) is Circles. Not being
able to easily control who sees what on Facebook is the reason I don't post
more personal content to it. Being able to easily control what I share and
with who - like I do in the real world - would make me 10x more likely to
become an active participant on a social network. It might be time to actually
sign up for an account....

~~~
ww520
Circle sounds good in theory but it's a pig to use in practice. Sign up and
see for yourself.

------
azakai
Very happy to hear Google+ is doing well. I don't do much social networking
myself, but serious competition for Facebook is a very good thing.

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rabble
My question is what happened the week of September 18th? That was when Google+
went from flatlining to a huge jump in growth, then followup growth. Anybody
know? My guess is something to do with android pushing folks to sign up, or
maybe them pushing it through gmail or google logins. Something changed and
they restarted the growth curve with a big spike.

~~~
murz
I think the spike you are seeing correlates to the transition from a "field
trial" (invite-only) product, to a public product.

This is the blog post announcing open signups and it is dated September 20th:
[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-92-93-94-95-96...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-92-93-94-95-96-97-98-99-100.html)

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atularora
Is there any correlation between G+ new users and new Android activations? One
is 625K and the other is 700K per day. Just curious.

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vatrai
<https://twitter.com/#!/arunagw/status/151969750518468608>

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kierank
What's the male/female split?

~~~
jdp23
the most recent numbers i saw were about 2-1, unchanged since July

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rkon
Profiles? Sure. Users? No... not even close.

It's actually rather telling when the only way to make Google+ sound popular
is to count meaningless automatic signups.

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joshmlewis
I guess those TV commercials are helping.

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easy_rider
Maybe the new Facebook timeline is to blame? :)

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badclient
Google can try and play stupid as much as they want by reporting signups and
not actives but I'm glad it isn't fooling the HN crowd.

Facebook long changed the game by reporting actives. Since, startups like
twitter and foursquare have followed suit by reporting actives. It is very
apparent what google's refusal to report actives means.

~~~
jsnell
Google is reporting nothing in this case. It's some dude trying to deduce the
user count from other information.

