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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.
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+!
G+ is used solely for following Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day when they have something to say beyond Twitter's 140 characters. They both have FB accounts now, however, so I imagine G+ will soon fade out of existence.
This reminds me of an image my boss has taped to her desk. (http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/social-media-explained-with-donuts-20120210/)
If you don't wan to click, it says:
Social Media Explained
Twitter: I'm eating a #donut
Facebook: I Like donuts
Foursquare: This is where I eat donuts
Instagram: Here's a vintage photo of my donut
YouTube: Here I am eating a donut
Pinterest: Here's a donut recipe
Last FM: Now Listening to "Donuts"
G+: I'm a Google employee who eats donuts.
You should add me on Google Wave then.
Mr. Horowitz declined to share data about how much time people spend on Google+ but said "we're growing by every metric we care about." ...
When asked what metrics Google+ cared about, the answer was a straight faced "Any metric that is growing"
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
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.
Can you provide a single example where Google has ever sold personal information to any third party ever? I get that privacy is important and Google might be pushing the boundaries on it, but spreading FUD like this isn't helping your cause.
My other sig is clever.
I agreed, there was no reason to use Google + - but I clicked in this week and people are actually posting and they are people I care about because my list isn't bloated.
So I'm going to start looking at plus now. I stopped using Facebook months ago.
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.
My friends and I use G+, but not the way people use Facebook. It's more like an enhanced group email. We always used to have these email chains where someone would send out something interesting to everyone on the list, and people would just reply-all to that, either chatting or planning a party or whatever. Now we do the same thing on G+ since it makes it a bit easier. But I'd never "hang out" on the site (nor do I understand why people hang out on Facebook). I just log in from my phone, see if anything's happening, maybe fire off a reply, and log back off.
Specifically, google emailed me last night that they will suspend my account if I don't use me real name.
Apparently their desire for new users is less than their need to be dicks to the ones they have.
Too bad. I liked G+.
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?