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Anyone who buys into the "G+ is a ghost town propped up by Gmail and Android numbers" theory will note that they literally just announced 500 million Android ac

by Steko 14y ago

Anyone who buys into the "G+ is a ghost town propped up by Gmail and Android numbers" theory will note that they literally just announced 500 million Android activations a few days ago. And you'd expect a good number of users are buying their second android phone.

GFischer 14y ago
I don't understand your point. I switched to Android, and so did everybody in my office, yet nobody feels compelled to use Google Plus.
- Steko 14y ago
  Probably 95% of non-fork Android users create or already have a Google account at the time of activation. And probably 95% of the ones that don't end up making one because it's a requirement for the app store or gmail or whatever. Now there's nothing wrong with that. There's not even anything wrong with defaulting G+ to "on". What's "wrong" is to go around claiming G+ is some kind of amazing success story that's growing like wildfire. It'd be like Apple adding a new Ping checkbox to Apple id profiles that defaults to on and then claiming Ping has 400 million new users and is a runaway success.
  - k3n 14y ago
    G+ is not a requirement for Google Play, I have it disabled across my domain and still access and use the store without issue.
    - Steko 14y ago
      "G+ is not a requirement for Google Play" Not claimed. The claim is that a Google Account is necessary for Google Play and when you sign up for a Google Account the default for G+ is on. And again I don't see anything wrong with that. But the obvious result is that this inflates the G+ numbers with people who aren't the least interested in G+ as a service. Again if Apple did this with Ping they'd be a laughingstock.
      - k3n 14y ago
        Ah, you meant a Google account, gotcha.
      - Evbn 14y ago
        If this is true it is a huge problem that Google would be publishing user information (name, photo) to the public on an opt-out basis, violating their privacy principles.
  - GFischer 14y ago
    Ah, I didn't realize that Google+ defaulted to "on" when you create a new Google Account. So yes, I think you're right, most of those new accounts won't be using Google+ . Thanks for the clarification.

by Steko 14y ago

GFischer 14y ago

I don't understand your point. I switched to Android, and so did everybody in my office, yet nobody feels compelled to use Google Plus.

Steko 14y ago
Probably 95% of non-fork Android users create or already have a Google account at the time of activation. And probably 95% of the ones that don't end up making one because it's a requirement for the app store or gmail or whatever. Now there's nothing wrong with that. There's not even anything wrong with defaulting G+ to "on". What's "wrong" is to go around claiming G+ is some kind of amazing success story that's growing like wildfire. It'd be like Apple adding a new Ping checkbox to Apple id profiles that defaults to on and then claiming Ping has 400 million new users and is a runaway success.
- k3n 14y ago
  G+ is not a requirement for Google Play, I have it disabled across my domain and still access and use the store without issue.
  - Steko 14y ago
    "G+ is not a requirement for Google Play" Not claimed. The claim is that a Google Account is necessary for Google Play and when you sign up for a Google Account the default for G+ is on. And again I don't see anything wrong with that. But the obvious result is that this inflates the G+ numbers with people who aren't the least interested in G+ as a service. Again if Apple did this with Ping they'd be a laughingstock.
    - k3n 14y ago
      Ah, you meant a Google account, gotcha.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      If this is true it is a huge problem that Google would be publishing user information (name, photo) to the public on an opt-out basis, violating their privacy principles.
- GFischer 14y ago
  Ah, I didn't realize that Google+ defaulted to "on" when you create a new Google Account. So yes, I think you're right, most of those new accounts won't be using Google+ . Thanks for the clarification.