Is Google+ Waning Already?
It's been less than a month since Google opened up it's new social networking site, Google+. Now data collected by Chikita insights is suggesting that traffic to the site has recently dropped by as much as 60%.
The sudden drop, reported by Dvice, showed a huge surge in traffic last month of 1,200% but now a significant drop.
It's entirely reasonable that people who already have a Google account would pop in to Google+ to have a look, but this figures suggests that perhaps Google aren't offering them enough to stick around.
What a social network really needs, almost straight off the bat, is a huge number of users. This is the only way to compete with Facebook which at last count was approaching 750 million users.
Some people are saying that Google+ simply doesn't offer enough to stand out from the social network competition, but that it's also likely that Facebook now has such a stranglehold over its users, with many people now devoting more time to it each evening than to other activities including television, that it needs to be more unique.
It is clearly though far too early to pass judgement over Google+, despite the problems that Google has had trying to launch social networks in the past. Also a 60% drop might be very significant, but when Google was reporting 20 million users three weeks ago, it still leaves a very healthy volume of users to build on.
So which social network do you use, if any at all? Why not tell us in the comments here.
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The things on Google+ are huge. On a laptop i can only see 2 posts without scrolling. On facebook I see 4 posts. I really don’t like the new interface on google apps because they wastes lots of space.
I think Google Plus is good, and it has some nice features that are lacking from other social networks, but the fact that it’s just the same with Facebook “Plus” Twitter isn’t going to sway me away from the two. Google should innovate something new. Not just a new feature but a new concept. Another Facebook is just too much!
1) Livejournal since 2005. Best for me – some of my closest friends are here.
2) Facebook , – company I work for pushed me to it, also some colleagues are there.
3) Vkontakte – Russian Facebook-like, I don’t use it to often, but use occasionally.
As for Google+ – I don’t see any reason to use it.
Personally, I use Google+ and have just about stopped using Facebook. Also, the activity I am observing on G+ seems as brisk as ever, maybe more so.
Personally, I like Google+ better, but not having the people you care most on G+ makes it completely pointless to me… guess facebook it is then..
I am gradually getting the people I care about to move to G+. When I am done with that, FB is history.
would love to use google+, but STILL no support for Google Apps users. So in that case I’ll stick to the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
Google+ isn’t bad, but that’s almost all about it. To break the FB stranglehold, Google needed something very incisive and yet, very simple. Google+ is good in that its user-friendly to a major extent, but somehow the inventiveness is left kicking about somewhere in the wilderness.
If I could get all my friends over to G+, I’d stop using Facebook forever.
Google is looking at social too much in a scientific way. Too much focused on features.
I am not a big user of both Facebook or Google+. However I read a story about one of the features of G+ that is used as a USP: the option to improve the quality of a photo with lightness adjustment and more. This is significant of what G+ is focused on.
That just is not what the world is looking for (as a USP). Too techy.
Google is looking for ways how to do it.
Facebook (until now) is just doing it.
G would need to integrate Google Talk, Docs, etc in the + framework. As it is now I need to remember how to use too many different interfaces. So I’m using the ones I know and don’t visit G+ at all. And GTalk isn’t that easy to use right now, but I imagine that a circles-focused GTalk would be the killer app I need to replace both Facebook and Skype.
Adding a way to reference or import my FB and Skype contacts lists would also help a great deal.
I use… G+, and that’s basically it.
I only connect once ine a while on facebook to see what’s going on… but yeah, I left my blog, twitter, and facebook.
This focus on “interests” rather than “friendship/relationship” is a killer to me.
And all these features announced by facebook will only make it relevant for a more “friends-only” strategy. Why would I care to see a colleague/blogger/whatever clicked on “play” (yeah, because this ‘frictionless sharing’ thingy does not actually say what you LISTENED TO).
Anyway, waiting till the end of year to see how it goes, but from where I stand, I’ll just clean my whole facebook account, clearing it of all these people you meet here and there, add to facebook, don’t care about. It will become “friends-only”, to check once in a while, and then g+ will be even more central.
At least, to me (and from what I see pretty much anyone I follow on g+ :)).
Wow! So many Google fanboys or Google employees commenting here just to say how great G+ is,
Whatever.
Regards
Fanboys (&girls?) most likely. And that even with gHacks being mostly tilted towards a MS fanboys audience I had thought. What would be great would be some stories on how people use one social network or other. I’m sure there are many who just don’t get it yet. I’m one.
I’m using Facebook for my social needs. Facebook has everything I need so I find no reason to shift to another social network because it is from Google especially when Google has tried and failed many times in the social networking arena.
I feel Google+ is better than fb. why bcos, 1)Hangouts(Multi video chat),
2)Circles(But creating many circles will be tough to manage them, Still this feature to be improved alot)
3)Integration among the Google products(i.e Google music, Youtube, Reader, etc.,)
4)Mobile app(It has nearby users post option, Hangout upto 9 people)
5) Unlimited photo uploading with editing feature( Of,course it’s completely integrated with picasa web albums)
6) +1, I’m using it as bookmarking tool.
7) #tag feature for real-time stream line.
8) Games and it notification in separate stream.
9) Mainly “No Advertisements”
And many more features which they’re constantly rolling out is attracting me towards Google plus.
However i already quit fb completely. because of all annoying recent modifications like top stories, ticker.
Google always give user preferences options to us. In that way fb really fails.
You may be right in every point you have made but I only care about one thing, I get customers from Facebook but not from Google+. I’ll be happy with G+ when a majority of my customers will be using it.