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Users Spend More Time On Myspace Than Google+
pigrabbitbear writes "Google is boasting that more than 90 million people have signed up for its Google+. Those are pretty impressive numbers. I mean, if you had 90 million people at your disposal, you could do anything. You'd rule the Internet. Except there's one little problem: No one is using the site. The Wall Street Journal has the hard, unfiltered truth: According to comScore numbers, users spent an average of 3 minutes on G+ in the entire month of January. Facebook users spent 405 minutes, or nearly 7 hours, on the site. People managed to find 17 minutes to spare to add connections on LinkedIn. Heck, even Myspace users — many of whom are probably ghost accounts — surfed for eight minutes over the month."
Simple reason is that facebook is already a working hub for all of my friends, there are those who have switched to google plus, but as long as all my friends, all my co-workers and all of my family, is already in one place? Why go someplace else? Google needs to blow some capital to get people to move. Offer incentives to switch, that's how business works.
Nice, now get rid of it and return the + operator to the search engine please.
the problem with social networking is the is very low barrier to entry. If someone comes up with a shiny new widget then people will dump facebook just like they dumped myspace.
Google isn't going to let its foray into the most profitable market... possibly ever (sales of personal information of others), just fade off into obscurity.
Personally, I wish they'd all go away. Failing that, the more competition the better.
G+ fits my desire for social-networking perfectly: I hardly have to spend any time on it to get what I want out of it. I spend no time whatsoever on the other systems, because they're more cumbersome and demand my time in ways I'm not comfortable with. G+ is the only system that lets me contribute the little amount of time I'm willing to contribute, without being useless. So maybe its users *do* use it for fewer minutes a month -- but isn't that okay? Is there not a market for that? Lots of people probably watch crappy TV -- should we judge other channels based on the fact that they have a few, well-targeted shows, that a segment of the population watches (but nothing else)? Maybe it should be our goal to use these systems less, not more! In that respect, G+ represents an increase in efficiency -- which is a driver of GNP. So it's a good thing. Go G+!
Right on. Just measuring time spent on something doesn't determine it's value, that's the wrong metric.
Seconded here. There is 1/8th as much content on my G+ then there ever was on facebook. However that 1/8th is actually things that I either find amusing, actual posts by the friends I give a darn about (compared to 80% of my facebook contacts... which were mostly people I barely knew in person that looked me up and added me, and it was less work to add them then to explain why I don't want to add someone.
Google and Facebook are more about renting your personal information - as in, here, let us send this ad to someone whose personal information matches your desired profile. No way they're going to sell their core business. :)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Sorry, we were too busy on G+ to worry about first post....
"The Wall Street Journal has the hard, unfiltered truth"
Yeah, except it doesn't count mobile users. G+ is mostly cutting edge geeks who are using the app at least as much as the website. It doesn't define which users it is counting. Is this counting active users, signed up and never returned users, who? Considering anyone with a Google account now has a G+ account, the numbers can easily be far off what the active user numbers would be. If they were testing me, and testing mobile, I'd easily clock in about 8 hours average a day (always checking on phone, commenting in discussions, on tablet, on at work, etc.)
Also, many of us geeks got family to join. We all but boycott Facebook, so they have to log in every once in a while just to check on us, but never interact.
From personal experience, I have 1000+ followers, follow 200+, and it take me more than 3 minutes a day just to get through the first page of posts. Also, I hyper share with G+, because it's people I share interests, not genes, with.
Compared to Slashdot: I've posted more interesting stories than Slashdot had today. I've read more interesting stories separately as well. I've had better discussions that on Slashdot. Millions of users, only a couple thousand posts per day... Maybe the Slashdot crowd shouldn't be throwing stones. Reading all the blurbs, I could easily fit Slashdot into 3 minutes a day or less.
Besides, many posted this story before it was on Slashdot. Became old news quick, already fully parsed, dissected, and discussed. Glad to see /. catch up to G+, and then poo-poo it, lol.
I8-D
Which brings it all back to the merits of the two services to the end users.
Well, that's about a zero for G+, by the looks of things. However, FB is unequivocally heavily into negative territory in terms of merit to end users (even attempting to track non-users?). This is one reason why my router blocks all access to all of FB's IP ranges, thus rendering all those "like" buttons polluting other pages utterly harmless. These stupid "like" buttons are shown, but it's actually impressive or astonishing how much other stuff around the web is replaced by "denied" messages by the router.
I've an open mind about Google, but Facebook is definitely at the wrong end of the good-evil axis.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Google+ is just not the same as Facebook and never will be. People don't go there as part of a social popularity contest. I just don't get all this bashing of Google+ about stuff that its users don't even care about. Next up people will bash Linux for not having as many users as Windows?
<SARCASM=ON> OK, the average visitor spends about 1 hour at Walmart while the average buyer at Amazon leaves the site after 3min. So drop your Amazon shares and buy Walmarts....</SARCASM>
This is such a 20th century metric ;-)
In earnest: Perhaps FB ist usefull to people who don't know what to do else. I am perfectly happy to be up-to-date with most of my contacts in 10min on G+. Time is the most valuable stuff i have.
If google does not give my personal information to advertisers, then my personal information is neither sold, or rented.
Would you not agree?
In all honesty, I'm not even sure of what Google + is meant to be used for, or why I'd even care.
On my G+ stream today, a shared article on the economic impact of allowing gay marriage, a discussion of the effects of some changes to local laws, photos from a friend who has moved to another country showing things the tourists don't usually see.
On my Facebook feed, an in-law threw up in his car today, someone saw somebody in shopping mall who looked just like a celebrity, somebody got drunk at somebody elses birthday and said something cutting, and 6 'inspirational' image macros I'm supposed to share that all basically say "I'm a precious snowflake and everybody else is a mindless sheep."
Facebook may be more popular, but quantity is not quality.