Google Now Boasts World's No. 2 and No. 3 Social Networks

redletterdave writes "A new report released Monday revealed that Google+, less than a year and a half after its public debut, is now the No. 2 social network in the world with 343 million active users. Even better for Google, YouTube, which had not previously been tracked as a social network until recently, is now the No. 3 social network in the world with about 300 million active users. Google Plus and YouTube are being used by 25 percent and 21 percent of the global Internet populace, respectively."

Comments

Youtube is more a number 2

[jaymz666]

Youtube is more a number 2 in terms of content being dumped out by the commenters

YouTube users now Google+ users

[Anonymous Coward]

Not too long ago, YouTube asked me if I wanted to change my YouTube name to something else.
I thought 'Sure, why not.'
And out of nowhere, I became a Google+ user.
For a couple of months now, they've been tricking YouTube users into getting Google+ accounts.

Re:YouTube users now Google+ users

[Etherized]

It seems as if this is what a lot of "Google+ users" actually are - people who use other google products which have Google+ integration that they trick people into activating. In addition to youtube they do the same trick for Picasa, instant upload on Android, gmail chat, and probably others that I am not aware of.

I actually like Google+ well enough, but I think their reports of its user base are greatly exaggerated.

Re:YouTube users now Google+ users

[Anubis IV]

Exactly. Note also that they merely claimed they were "active users", but that what defines a user as "active" is a rather open definition if you go all the way back to the original report ("Used or contributed to in the past month"). If all that is necessary to be considered active is to use a Google service that is linked to your G+ account (e.g. Google search returns personalized results based on links shared by your G+ friends, which are (frustratingly) turned on by default), then more and more people are becoming active users every day without even realizing that they are being counted as such, for precisely the reasons you specified. Google keeps presenting it as a simple account upgrade or transition to a new system, rather than the user signing up for a new account entirely, which is entirely deceptive and unethical.

Moreover, the idea that there are actually 343M active users on G+ flies in the face of everything most of us know about the network, which is that the place is a virtual ghost town. Claiming that it has roughly half of the active user base of Facebook (343M vs. 693M) simply doesn't ring true and should have sent up a number of red flags for the research group. That YouTube has that many users comes as no surprise. But I don't see how a social network that most people still haven't even heard of can possibly be more popular than the most popular video sharing site that gets linked to and shared every single day, or half as popular as the social network that's used by nearly one in seven people worldwide.

And if you weight it by value...

[damn_registrars]

... then Google+ might be the only relevant social networking site. Facebook, twitter, etc, are still mostly plugged up with people taking pictures of their (coffee / cat / car) or telling you which bathroom they are using this afternoon. Google+ actually has meaningful discussions.