

Google+ traffic down 27% in the last two weeks - rmccue
http://www.dreamgrow.com/google-plus-is-failing-data/

======
noarchy
My experience with G+ has been telling me that it just isn't catching on
beyond a small group of my tech friends, and has indeed been fading in use.

Some solid competition in this area was needed, and I think Facebook has been
feeling the heat, given some of the changes they've been making. That said, if
G+ dies off, I don't think it will necessarily be because of anything that
Facebook did. I think that most of the people who I know just don't want to
maintain more than one "Facebook-type" site. This probably has a lot to do
with why Myspace floundered so rapidly once Facebook gained momentum.

~~~
Hyena
If you still need an invite, your answer lies in that.

~~~
noarchy
I've thrown out invites, and offered to invite a ton of people. Most didn't
take me up on it. The ones who would've been most likely to join, had already
found a way to join on their own.

~~~
Hyena
Yes, but that's how it will be with everyone. The growth of a social network
is driven by having lots of nodes to start from. Google+ doesn't have that; it
has a core of techies. My invite is only once removed from a Google employee
and then only because I asked my roommate before my Googler friends.

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mike-cardwell
I stopped encouraging people to join up when I saw how badly Google were
handling the pseudonym issue. I no longer believe they're any more fit to run
a social network than Facebook.

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cryptoz
Misleading headline. Google+ traffic down 27% in the last two weeks [ _among
Alexa toolbar users_ ].

~~~
vacri
I've never understood how Alexa stats are considered relevant. No-one I know -
from the savviest sysadmin who only browses in lynx to the most malware-
infested bloated-PC user - has ever used Alexa toolbar. I once installed it a
long time ago on some random machine just to look at it and uninstalled it
again. How is their traffic 'representative'?

~~~
forgotusername
You can make this claim for any headline referencing web traffic figures, and
while it weakens the headline, losing a quarter traffic over 2 weeks in any
market is still noteworthy at least to me.

FWIW, addons.mozilla claims 56,000 users for the Alexa Firefox toolbar alone.

~~~
mnutt
56k is quite a few, but the top extensions have millions of users.

I'd imagine the vast majority of Alexa Toolbar users get it bundled with other
software they're installing.

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bignoggins
Currently, I have 149 people in my circles. 10% of them are google employees,
but they contribute 2/3 of the items in my feed. Not sure if this matches
anyone else's experience. Most of my non-technical family and friends tried it
out for a week or so, then went back to facebook.

Facebook also copied quite a few of Google+'s features recently so most of my
non technical friends are less willing to try google+ compared to a when it
first came out.

~~~
juliano_q
It is a little worse here, I would say that 80% of the items from my feed are
from google employees. When I change to filter only my friends the feed is
almost depressing, always around 3 posts/day with around 100 people in my
circles.

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orenmazor
I don't know about other people's experience, but for me the problem is that
the first adopters that actually used g+ were techies like me, so my feed was
just full of people posting links to technical articles and having elaborate
flame wars about this browser vs that or this site vs that.

which is great, but that's google reader-ish. not facebook. nobody would post
anything social (i.e. we just got married, here are photos. or we just got a
dog. or happy birthday!).

~~~
muuh-gnu
I was excited about G+ at first, but decided that their invitation-only game
to drive up demand is childish and that I will wait for them to open up for
everyone, like I did with gmail back then. Then they started to strictly
enforce a stupid, stupid real name policy, so I decided no to bother. The more
they push that stupid, unwanted policy against their users, the more I
actually root for FB to "win" the social network battle.

~~~
redthrowaway
Facebook (loosely) enforces the same policy.

~~~
muuh-gnu
I don't use FB either. I had a higher opinion of Google, as many other people
also hoped G+ would be a social network made right. But enforcing stupid
policies right from the start against early adopters is ridiculous, no matter
what the policy in question actually is. This early in the game they simply
can not afford alienating enthusiastic early users, but they're doing exactly
that. If this is the shape of the things to yet come, it is no wonder that
users are deciding no to bother any more.

------
sssparkkk
As Tom Anderson also argued a while ago: it's not a facebook-competitor in its
current form yet, but that doesn't matter.

What matters is that G+ is proving to be a nice blend between twitter and a
blogging platform. When large content-creators switch to G+ (and a lot of them
are, because of 1. followers, 2. larger posts, and 3. comments) their audience
will slowly move over to G+ as well.

I will not be surprised if this will gradually result in more facebook-like
activity (closer social contact, between friends) on G+.

------
0x12
After 'wave' being killed off I figure I'll give any google service that is
launched 6 months before I try it out, that may save me some time invested
into google 'duds'.

Of course, that is a self fulfilling prophesy, by not trying it out I make it
more likely that the service gets killed and if enough people think like me
then that's how it will go.

I wonder if google factored that effect in when they killed off wave.

------
silverbax88
They've already blundered with the Real Name policy and they don't want to
back off.

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uptown
I'd use Google+ more if the default view didn't show everybody's posts.
There's some people I'd like to follow but only want to show when I select a
specific stream because they're noisier than everybody else on the platform.
Instead, if I want to follow them at all they dominate the primary view. So my
choice appears to be to ignore them completely, or live with their posts
cluttering the interface unless I navigate to each sub-circle to see everybody
else's posts. There needs to be a way to turn off some users's content from
the primary stream while still following them. Maybe there is, and I'm just
not aware of it.

~~~
w33ble
That's actually a big part of why I closed my Facebook account. They used to
allow you to see the photo stream by default, which was fine. Then they took
that away and it was endless noise without some mandatory clicking. It simply
wasn't worth it for me, so I left. G+ is starting off on the same foot, but
with the added hurt of nobody posting anything interesting to it; the options
for me are really annoying noise, slightly less annoying noise or silence. Not
exactly useful...

------
dkrich
This feels like Wave 2.0. Google created an incredible product, but botched
the launch by keeping it shut down for too long, and now the newness has worn
off. Good luck getting people excited when it finally is open to the public.

That's not to say that a social network can't build steam over time (after all
that's exactly what Facebook did). But the problem here is that the role of
Facebook and social networking is much more well defined than it was when
MySpace was the leader. At that time everybody knew these sites were cool, but
the value proposition wasn't completely apparent.

~~~
cageface
I agree that they've squandered the initial momentum. This is a lesson
everybody can learn from Apple: make a big splash on day one. Maybe MVP and
iteration is a good approach for a new startup but when you're going toe-to-
toe with a juggernaut like Facebook you need to land that first punch.

It gets worse though. I suspect I'm not the only person for whom their heavy
handed real name policy was the final impetus to unplug from their information
harvesting network altogether. G+ may actually backfire on them.

~~~
fluidcruft
I agree. Not only the real name policy but the stories about shutting down
access to other Google services is pretty frightening to a nobody like me.
Especially when Google comes out and claims that these anecdotes are not true
and that the people were banned for other nebulous reasons. Well they may or
may not be. Google puts a lot of faith in their machines. If there's one thing
I've learned about Google: avoid doing anything that might require some sort
of intervention by them to fix your account--you won't be able to contact
anyone and they just don't care unless you're famous. Someone like me will
just languish in the cogs. The only times they care are when someone
famous/influential gets inconvenienced or the other case is when a large group
of users are affected and they have to dust off the backups. Bottom line: I'm
pretty sure that if something strange happened--Google will just say it's my
fault. For me as one little user: not worth the risk.

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spinchange
This real names/ban hammer thing is having a chilling effect.

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aurora72
I haven't signed up on G+ and I never will, you know why? Because, AFAIK, you
can only be signed up after G+ member invites you! This is to ensure everyone
is real and everything's in order but it also keeps me stay away from G+.

~~~
w33ble
You can sign up from the link in the article. I just did. Funny thing is, I
had a friend invite me a month back, and it wouldn't work because Google
closed the invite system. In that month, he and all my other friends have
stopped using it, so I sign up and see nothing now. That doesn't compel me to
use it...

------
e40
The reason, IMO, it is already fading is simple: lack of critical mass. There
was initial excitement, then people realized most/all of their friends were
still on FB, so they stopped posting. This is exactly what happened to me. All
my friends no longer post on G+, and are back to FB.

~~~
ry0ohki
Critical mass and a compelling reason to use it over Facebook. Most people
just don't have the hate for Facebook that some in the tech community have.
That was the main thing people said to me when I tried to get them on G+ "Why
would I use this over Facebook?".

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robjohnson
It hasn't hit the critical mass to make it worthwhile. There is almost no
value proposition to the user over their existing social networks where they
know their friends are posting stuff. I agree that google should be using the
considerable resources at their disposal to get more users.

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bho
For me, only my closer friends are on G+. Unfortunately, this is the same
group of people who don't post on FB, so similarly, my G+ is pretty quiet.
It's nice though - really cuts out the "noise". In a way, I don't mind if it
stays this way.

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danmaz74
For now I like G+ because it's a much better Twitter: I can follow interesting
people who write interesting posts, and have interesting discussions with
comments. If this will work in the long run is to be seen.

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Kylekramer
Kind of early and inevitable to have a slow down. The real push hasn't begun
yet. But if I were Google, I would make it soon. Copy Facebook and go after
the college crowd, especially with back to school going on. Most importantly,
get the Gagas and Biebers of the world on there and engaging. Sadly, that is
what is drives social networks. Still way too early to call it dead or
anything, but I would like less testing and more action.

Also if you think the name thing has anything to do with mass adoption, you
are stuck in the tech bubble.

~~~
dagw
Except getting Lady Gaga onto Google+ won't do much good since nobody would be
able to find her. Most of her fans wouldn't think to search for Stefani Joanne
Angelina Germanotta.

~~~
Kylekramer
Not sure what your point is. If you actually think Google would force her to
use her real name, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. If it is some
point about the name wars, it has very little to do with Google+'s traction.

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bnegreve
The figures are _very_ insufficient to draw any conclusion. How was the trafic
before the first of august ? Also, a decrease from 3% to 2% during summer has
many possible explanations.

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mtkd
There is still an exclusion for Apps users. The intersection of Apps users and
most prolific contributors on existing social networks should not be
underestimated.

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darwinGod
From some browsing on Google + , I feel that many aren't using circles the
right way. I am able to see random people's post planning for trek during the
weekend. If it were FB, I might not have seen it. Maybe I would have been
prompted to 'add as friend' .

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owkaye
I've had a gmail account for years yet I still have not received an invitation
from google to join G+ ... so why should I care about its success or failure
when I cannot even use it yet???

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Hyena
_Invite only_.

Until that changes, none of this is relevant.

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dreamgrow
If you look at latest numbers in the table it's already down 37%

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Hisoka
I think we don't need anyone to show us numbers or stats that Google+ is not
gaining traction. We already know that, just compare your Facebook usage vs G+
usage. Compare the # of friends who talk about Facebook vs. G+. Compare the #
of non-techie friends who signed up for G+. It's a no-brainer, we all know
this deep down. G+ is going nowhere.

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yanw
I'm not sure how telling any of this is, usage and traffic are going to rise
and fall after the initial launch I'm sure it was expected mainly because the
market for social networks is already saturated. Keeping and eye on traffic in
this initial stage is as useless as watching stock prices go up and down
everyday.

The service will have at least another launch as it gets out of beta and
offers an API and so forth and traffic will probably rise then.

As for having a mostly techie userbase it's just where it's market penetration
starts, and techies are the most likely to adopt a new invite only app. I'm
sure other demographics will take notice when everyone has the +Name on the
navigation bar and the app's features are integrated with most of Google's
services.

~~~
Goronmon
_As for having a mostly techie userbase it's just where it's market
penetration starts, and techies are the most likely to adopt a new invite only
app._

And that's also where it's market penetration ends. Non-techies don't want to
deal with invite stuff, so they don't join Google+. Now the only people on
Google+ are techies, and that's where it's going to stay until Google kills it
off in a few months like they've done will most of their other recent projects
like this.

Give me one good reason why non-techies would ever join a social networking
site filled with techies when they already have Facebook that fulfills all
their needs?

~~~
yanw
It will stop being invite only eventually, and I don't think Google is going
to kill the project it's along term play that they are investing a lot in, and
as integrates with all of Google's other services it'll become more valuable
and get exposed to the millions using those services.

~~~
Goronmon
_It will stop being invite only eventually_

And why will that matter? It doesn't change the point I mentioned. Why would a
non-techie join a social networking site filled with techies?

And Google will kill Google+ because people will stop using it and it won't
make sense to keep such a large project going without a userbase.

~~~
yanw
Of course it will. It's a bottleneck, and once it's unrestricted and there is
no friction to joining they will market it to the non-techies. And regardless
even a techie exclusive user-base is far from worthless.

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ristretto
There is still no option to automatically cross-post to your facebook. Wait
until the G+ platform launches.

~~~
w33ble
I'm waiting for that ability for Twitter myself. If they could mesh the G+
stream with my Twitter stream, I might be compelled to use it. Buzz got this
wrong too, I'm not sure Google understands yet that they can play nice with
others and succeed; in fact they have to to succeed. They seem to have their
eyes set pretty squarely on a walled garden that can't be extended outside
their services, at least so far.

~~~
arcdrag
Check out Tweetdeck. It does pretty much exactly what you're looking for with
FB and Twitter (and whatever other networks you use). G+ just hasn't opened up
an API yet for anyone to tap into it.

~~~
w33ble
I've used Tweetdeck before. Really nice Twitter app, but I don't use FB so
there's no need to mesh the 2. My point is, I use Twitter and it serves me
well. Without Twitter integration into G+, I have little incentive to use G+.
All the friends I care about are already on Twitter, only one or two are on
G+. Unless I can read my Twitter feed in G+ in addition to reading my G+ feed,
it's pretty useless for me right now. Maybe when they release an API I'll come
back and check it out. Thanks for the suggestion either way.

