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I respectfully disagree. Was your expectation that G+'s user-base would eclipse FB after 5 months? I don't think that's realistic (really going out on a limb

I respectfully disagree. Was your expectation that G+'s user-base would eclipse FB after 5 months? I don't think that's realistic (really going out on a limb here). By that metric you could have said the same thing about FB in the early days when MySpace had all the users. Clearly, over time, people moved to the better product. If you want to comment on the rate of adoption, that's one thing, but lets compare apples to apples.

badclient 15y ago
I don't care about the user-base numbers. All I care about is engagement. Facebook had crazy engagement even when they had 1000 members. When they had 10M, over 50% of the users were logging in daily. Google now has 40M users and yet they refuse to release engagement numbers.
- robryan 15y ago
  Facebook had great engagement early on because all the early users were in the same social circles. Wouldn't surprise me at all that 1000 users at the same college as me would result in more usage as opposed to 40 million users scattered across the world.
  - badclient 15y ago
    I chalk that up as a deadly blunder on Google's part. No one forced google to just open up G+ to the entire world. I feel they botched the launch of G+ by allowing scattered masses to join instead of totally nailing smaller groups like how Facebook did.
    - robryan 15y ago
      I think they nailed a single group, the already fairly well connected tech and startups people. This also dragged along those interested in these people although they get less value from it as it's more of a Twitter like following medium unless lots of people are putting you in their circles. Google certainly have the resources to nail more smaller groups, it's just not the way they operate as this doesn't scale well.
      - badclient 15y ago
        I disagree that they have nailed any group. For me, nailing a group would mean that group ditching their competitor. Yet, I can't name a single Valley friend of hundreds who has ditched facebook for Google+. Now, I can name you dozens who have a G+ account and have tinkered with it. But that is hardly "nailing" it. I think you actually nailed it: google doesn't know how to scale social because social doesn't scale the same way as most other products. Facebook scaled growth in a very methodical manner from university to university and later country to country.
        mayanksinghal 15y ago
        Actually, Google+ is doing fairly well among bloggers, especially tech bloggers. Some references: [1] [2]. Also, success of a product does not mean ditching competitors (although one of the report does even suggest that!), it means gaining sufficient acceptance initially, so that later it becomes a valid option to ditch competitors. For example: I was an Orkut user (was not happy with it) for quite a long time (1 year or so), even after joining facebook. Not because Facebook was not good or successful but because there was already some engagement at Orkut that cannot be replaced in a jiffy. [1] http://www.blogworld.com/2011/07/13/prominent-tech-bloggers-point-domain-names-to-google-plus-streams/ http://www.blogworld.com/2011/07/13/prominent-tech-bloggers-... [2] https://plus.google.com/113117251731252114390/posts/3wfvDJEiJXq https://plus.google.com/113117251731252114390/posts/3wfvDJEi...
        badclient 15y ago
        Actually, Google+ is doing fairly well among bloggers, especially tech bloggers. Some references: [1] [2]. Sorry, tech bloggers is a vastly different segment than tech users. Neither are optimal groups to target if you want to build a mainstream social network.
- bitskits 15y ago
  "All I care about is engagement" I am not following. So if a site has 10 or 1000 users who are all engaged (maybe a community soccer forum or something), it's a success, but if it has 40M+ with an engagement that is unknown, it's dead? I am not convinced. IMO, you can't simply disregard user-base and growth speed. Those numbers matter.
  - badclient 15y ago
    This discussion is specifically about facebook vs. G+; not a random site with 1,000 users. We know that both sites have achieved significant user-base. We also know that one of those sites has crazy engagement and that it's had crazy engagement for a long time. That site is facebook. We know that the other site has 40+M members but publishes no engagement metrics and when pushed, avoids questions about engagement. It is not a stretch to assume from this that their engagement is not optimal. It is safe to say that facebook wins the engagement war. The common counterargument is "but G+ only launched few months ago." To this, I counter that few months into facebook's launch, their engagement was very high. The next common argument is that "but G+ got 40M+ members in few months." To this I say that the 40+M number says very little about G+ and says much about the Google search engine. As an example, I'd argue Google can launch a fictitious service and get tens of millions of signups for it by linking to it from google.com.

badclient 15y ago

I don't care about the user-base numbers. All I care about is engagement. Facebook had crazy engagement even when they had 1000 members. When they had 10M, over 50% of the users were logging in daily. Google now has 40M users and yet they refuse to release engagement numbers.

robryan 15y ago
Facebook had great engagement early on because all the early users were in the same social circles. Wouldn't surprise me at all that 1000 users at the same college as me would result in more usage as opposed to 40 million users scattered across the world.
- badclient 15y ago
  I chalk that up as a deadly blunder on Google's part. No one forced google to just open up G+ to the entire world. I feel they botched the launch of G+ by allowing scattered masses to join instead of totally nailing smaller groups like how Facebook did.
  - robryan 15y ago
    I think they nailed a single group, the already fairly well connected tech and startups people. This also dragged along those interested in these people although they get less value from it as it's more of a Twitter like following medium unless lots of people are putting you in their circles. Google certainly have the resources to nail more smaller groups, it's just not the way they operate as this doesn't scale well.
    - badclient 15y ago
      I disagree that they have nailed any group. For me, nailing a group would mean that group ditching their competitor. Yet, I can't name a single Valley friend of hundreds who has ditched facebook for Google+. Now, I can name you dozens who have a G+ account and have tinkered with it. But that is hardly "nailing" it. I think you actually nailed it: google doesn't know how to scale social because social doesn't scale the same way as most other products. Facebook scaled growth in a very methodical manner from university to university and later country to country.
      - mayanksinghal 15y ago
        Actually, Google+ is doing fairly well among bloggers, especially tech bloggers. Some references: [1] [2]. Also, success of a product does not mean ditching competitors (although one of the report does even suggest that!), it means gaining sufficient acceptance initially, so that later it becomes a valid option to ditch competitors. For example: I was an Orkut user (was not happy with it) for quite a long time (1 year or so), even after joining facebook. Not because Facebook was not good or successful but because there was already some engagement at Orkut that cannot be replaced in a jiffy. [1] http://www.blogworld.com/2011/07/13/prominent-tech-bloggers-point-domain-names-to-google-plus-streams/ http://www.blogworld.com/2011/07/13/prominent-tech-bloggers-... [2] https://plus.google.com/113117251731252114390/posts/3wfvDJEiJXq https://plus.google.com/113117251731252114390/posts/3wfvDJEi...
        badclient 15y ago
        Actually, Google+ is doing fairly well among bloggers, especially tech bloggers. Some references: [1] [2]. Sorry, tech bloggers is a vastly different segment than tech users. Neither are optimal groups to target if you want to build a mainstream social network.
bitskits 15y ago
"All I care about is engagement" I am not following. So if a site has 10 or 1000 users who are all engaged (maybe a community soccer forum or something), it's a success, but if it has 40M+ with an engagement that is unknown, it's dead? I am not convinced. IMO, you can't simply disregard user-base and growth speed. Those numbers matter.
- badclient 15y ago
  This discussion is specifically about facebook vs. G+; not a random site with 1,000 users. We know that both sites have achieved significant user-base. We also know that one of those sites has crazy engagement and that it's had crazy engagement for a long time. That site is facebook. We know that the other site has 40+M members but publishes no engagement metrics and when pushed, avoids questions about engagement. It is not a stretch to assume from this that their engagement is not optimal. It is safe to say that facebook wins the engagement war. The common counterargument is "but G+ only launched few months ago." To this, I counter that few months into facebook's launch, their engagement was very high. The next common argument is that "but G+ got 40M+ members in few months." To this I say that the 40+M number says very little about G+ and says much about the Google search engine. As an example, I'd argue Google can launch a fictitious service and get tens of millions of signups for it by linking to it from google.com.