6 ms·

Google+ Is Outpacing Twitter

45 points by talhof8 13y ago

volta1 13y ago
Comical headline.
programminggeek 13y ago
The only feature of Google+ that is really interesting to me is hangouts. That is a social thing that I use at work almost every day, but it doesn't really fit the traditional social network model, and it doesn't help Google make advertising money.
- mcescalante 13y ago
  Sounds to me like it's a prime candidate for some of Google's famed "spring cleaning" in the coming years...
  - andrewljohnson 13y ago
    That would be fine, and Google should still be lauded. Hangout started a whole cottage industry, and also nudged existing video chat vendors to adopt Hangout like functionality. If Google shut down Hangout, I would miss how reliable and high-quality it is compared to Skype, but there are a couple good alternatives now.
    - lepht 13y ago
      Can you link to a few that you've found useful?
  - jff 13y ago
    Can we just fuck right off with the whining about Reader at this point?
- prostoalex 13y ago
  Same here, for any N-way conference call it's easier to jump into hangout. We use it extensively at work, can't speak for other Google+ features.
vor_ 13y ago
This has been explained before. Google+ numbers can be misleading because they're tied to other services. The article mentions this: "The reasons behind Google Plus's growth -- it now can boast 359 million active users, up 33 percent from 269 million users at the end of June 2012, according to GlobalWebIndex -- are complex and tied to Google's effort to build a connecting layer across all its services, including search, YouTube, maps and other products. Log into one, and you've logged into the lot."
- adventured 13y ago
  And Twitter's numbers are extraordinarily misleading, because so many of their accounts are fake, and so many people just sign up but never really use the service.
  - fizx 13y ago
    The numbers you see externally are the same as the ones used internally to reason about growth, and a great deal of care has been taken to keep them accurate. Fake accounts are culled, and inactives or likely spammers aren't counted in the numbers.
    - adventured 13y ago
      Fake accounts are culled? Apparently not very well. To take one simple example, half of Bieber's followers are fake. I'd be willing to bet that between 1/3 and 1/2 of all followers on public accounts are fake. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/22104058 http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/22104058 Then on top of this, I'd like to see how many Twitter users post a few Tweets and then give up. It's not hard to calculate that data just by sampling a large number of users from the API. I'd argue it's an extreme portion of the supposedly active user base. Mostly Twitter is shallow (as in limited use and interaction) consumption platform, with relatively few highly active producers.
      - cantankerous 13y ago
        I think he meant that fake accounts were culled from the count, not in general.
bigdubs 13y ago
... that has no active users.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- mtgx 13y ago
  > On December 18, 2012, Twitter announced it had surpassed 200 million monthly active users. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
blappu 13y ago
Why doesn't Google just provide a tool to import a user's full Facebook data into Google+ with a single click? They could even do it without the user's consent for people using Chrome or Android, or they could pay people to do so (it might cost them 10 billions, but it would be quite a good "company" to "acquire"). Without doing that, or having some killer feature, there's no way that they will take off.
- ceejayoz 13y ago
  Facebook has a long history of disabling that sort of system.
  - blappu 13y ago
    Uh? That's impossible to do. Facebook already provides a way to download all your data, so Google just needs to write software that uses it and uploads it into Google+. Alternatively, they can just automatically scrape the Facebook website via HTTP directly from the user's machine (using a modified Chrome, modified Android, desktop tool or Android app).
    - NegativeK 13y ago
      Scoble was banned from Facebook because he was scraping contact info. I'm fairly certain it's a violation of their Terms of Service. Given that that's unlawful access of a computer system (and kind of a dick move,) I don't think Google wants to go down that route.
    - irishcoffee 13y ago
      If I'm not mistaken, facebook owns their information. Taking it directly would violate their ToS. It would need to be a two-step process if it were to work at all: a user downloads their information locally, and uploads it to g+
    - ceejayoz 13y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act edit: for the downvoter, I hardly support the abuse of laws like this, but that doesn't mean they won't be abused. Google writing a scraper is something that might well attract legal trouble from this and other vague computer security laws.
Felix21 13y ago
What you mean is: Millions of people activated G+ so they can use Youtube and other Google services without Google getting in their face every 2 seconds to activate g+
- edwardunknown 13y ago
  So you're saying they're discovered a way to spend money maintaining a huge community that nobody actually uses! Quick, give that CEO another bonus!
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    To say that "nobody uses" G+ is ridiculous. I don't even have that many people in my circles and I see a pretty non-stop stream of activity flowing through. Somebody is darn sure using it. Is G+ as active as Twitter? Hell, I don't know, but it's definitely - as another commenter here just said - not a "ghost town".
workbench 13y ago
not surprising when you converted all YouTubes profiles to G+ Profiles this month
w1ntermute 13y ago
As of late, I've been seeing more and more people active on G+. It's been quite a surprise, but I think the network is starting to pick up steam.
Sarkie 13y ago
I love it, I use Twitter, I used Facebook. Circles just does it for me. I care about these people today, I want to follow circle XYZ, I want to share this to Mates, Nerds, Android, etc. The Photo Albums is amazing and linked up with Instant Upload from my phone at full res when charging on a WiFi. I really like Google+ and wish it had come out before Twitter/Facebook.
rweba 13y ago
A lot of skeptics here (as usual!) Well I use both Google+ and Facebook every day and to me Google+ seems VERY active with a lot of high quality content as well. I can't really say if it is more active than Twitter (which is also very active of course) but it certainly doesn't seem like "a ghost town" as some people try to claim.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  I think Google+ has more active focussed communities of people using it (photographers, geeks) whereas Twitter has a wider variety of content.
- nati 13y ago
  facebook is getting worse day by day and google+ is really about high quality content
buster 13y ago
Well, i hope so. I still don't get the value of twitter, it always seemed to me as overrated. Why 140 characters? External services for photo upload? I still don't get it.. How is [1] better then [2]?! [1] http://www.imagebanana.com/view/okt9mdpq/obamatwitter.png http://www.imagebanana.com/view/okt9mdpq/obamatwitter.png [2] http://www.imagebanana.com/view/ma3vuvby/obamagooglep.png http://www.imagebanana.com/view/ma3vuvby/obamagooglep.png I hope i don't start a religious war now, just saying although i have a twitter account i never really got to use it... edit: changed screenshots to english versions
- muuh-gnu 13y ago
  > Why 140 characters? Historical. Twitter started out as a web-sms gateway. > I still don't get the value of twitter The value is in social capital. Important people post there exclusively. > How is [1] better then [2]?! It isnt. But [2] came to the scene after [1] so [1] has a bigger momentum. Being slightly better does not mean everybody suddenly will switch. The perceived improvement has to be bigger than the cost of switching.
- glenra 13y ago
  > I still don't get the value of twitter "Talk directly to semi-famous people" is one of the chief value propositions. Suppose you are a fan of some public figure - say, an actor or a politician who has more than thousands of fan - snd you want to ask that person a question or give them a compliment. If they're on twitter, there is a pretty good chance you could get through and have that person actually read what you have to say. If you're sufficiently witty and relevant it might even turn into a conversation. There is no other medium for which your chance of getting through is that large, and part of the reason why this is true is due to that 140-character limit. Consider the unread messages in your email inbox. Any single email you open might turn out to be a quick topical one-liner, carefully edited to make a single point clearly and say nothing extraneous...but it's much more likely to be rambling and poorly edited. In the worst case, it could take an hour to read and understand a single email. So sorting through email (or any other non-bounded message stream) is daunting and best delegated to somebody else if you get too much of it. The fact that tweets have to be so short forces tweeters to think carefully about what they want to say and to make their point quickly. If the message is a compliment or comment, it has to be an efficient one. If it's a question, it's an efficient question - you don't have to skim past a page of introductions and compliments and caveats to find it. And if the text is ugly or pointless or hateful, you can "block" the sender after you see a mere 140 characters of what he has to say. So that's one use case - talking directly to people who otherwise would be protected by a circle of PR flacks. You can currently do that more effectively on twitter than most other services. Even when talking to non-famous people, the 140-character limit imposes discipline that can make conversations more fun and efficient, but it only makes sense if some critical mass of the sort of people you like to talk to and hear from are already on the service, so it might not make sense for you yet. That's essentially a bootstrapping problem.
habosa 13y ago
I know the numbers are inflated due to tie-in with other Google services, but I'm very optimistic about Google+ long term. I got my invite in the first wave and pretty much immediately ditched the service. I just didn't see why I'd use it. I am a light Facebook user and I don't Tweet. Recently I decided to give G+ another try and I love what I am seeing. First of all, the site is a pleasure to use and the mobile app is by far best in class. Second, I think G+ is absolutely the best social network for those who are interested in following people outside of their friends. Celebrities on Facebook have something to sell, and on Twitter there's not enough room, but on G+ I get long, interesting posts from famous people around the world. I only have a few friends on G+ but I am starting to check it more and more and I can say without a doubt that if it ever hits critical mass I'll be the first to drop Facebook. Google simply has the latecomer's advantage, they got to watch Facebook stumble and build around those obstacles at their own pace. Also, Google+ sign-in is a great developer product. The deep-linking concept is a very interesting implementation of sharing for mobile apps that borrows from Android's intent system.
- edwardunknown 13y ago
  Google+ will be a fine replacement for Facebook when everybody gets the signal that FB has entered it's Newscorp-era Myspace phase. But there's another possibility: Facebook may end up leaving such a bad taste in people's mouths that it will be replaced by nothing. Both G+ and FB may fade away as the world collectively says "fuck this". You might say I'm a dreamer.
  - cantankerous 13y ago
    It makes sense that G+ could outlive Facebook if only because it's so tightly integrated with a suite of products that are so widely used, where Facebook's primary external integration is through apps that aren't essential to the day-in-day out...at least not yet. I think Facebook has become to tightly woven into peoples' lives, though, that it's going to live on for quite some time. It all really depends on where the kids decide to go, methinks..
    - 13y ago
mvkel 13y ago
Define "outpace" In terms of sharing popularity, printing out a webpage is 100X more popular than Google+: http://karmcity.com/post/49275229257/the-value-of-share-buttons http://karmcity.com/post/49275229257/the-value-of-share-butt...
oneandoneis2 13y ago
Facebook's where I go for social stuff. Twitter's largely replaced RSS. Google+ has two uses: # It's where my Androids upload to # It's where I get tech news - Linus, Greg KH, O'Reilly, etc. all post on G+ I tend to hope G+ doesn't become as popular as Facebook with the general public, because right now it's got a really good signal:noise ratio and I'd hate to see it drown in Farmville updates and cat photos..
- dbrian 13y ago
  Just group people in circles and read the one you want.
iamwil 13y ago
This is a bit of a open secret. I think many in tech think Google+ is a ghost town, and so the joke goes, the only people that use it are Google employees. However, when I was looking around for 3D printer communities, I was surprised that there was a vibrant one on G+. While one data point is not evidence, it is an example that runs counter to the current prevailing tech wisdom that nothing happens on G+. I think while G+ may not replace FB, the interface is great, and we may find social networks have other uses for groups besides what we do on FB.
whatsup 13y ago
Google+ is high quality for me, integration with Drive, Gmail, etc. is hard to beat
guylhem 13y ago
If I was to badmouth Google after reading the article, and especially their tactic of tying-in the experience, and using youtube and google ranking to induce people to open and use a google plus account, I'd say they are leveraging their existing monopolies to acquire another monopoly in a separated industry. Naysayers would say that's an emotional response, but I would then let monopoly be defined by known indexes such as the HI and leave the conclusion to arithmetic instead of emotions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index I haven't done the calculation, but we may find interesting results - and I say that while I think google + is being turned into a nice product, with useless cruft being removed little by little, and some polish added. IMHO only the legality of their tactic is troubling - the product is becoming good. But would it have if they hadn't played dirty? I guess it's legal if you are not getting caught.
badclient 13y ago
If google+ was doing so well, Google Corp wouldn't be scared shitless to talk about engagement. Google+ is honestly more of a rebranding of google than a new service. It is Google relabeling parts of popular products like Gmail and calling it Google+.

45 points by talhof8 13y ago

Comical headline.

The only feature of Google+ that is really interesting to me is hangouts. That is a social thing that I use at work almost every day, but it doesn't really fit the traditional social network model, and it doesn't help Google make advertising money.

mcescalante 13y ago
Sounds to me like it's a prime candidate for some of Google's famed "spring cleaning" in the coming years...
- andrewljohnson 13y ago
  That would be fine, and Google should still be lauded. Hangout started a whole cottage industry, and also nudged existing video chat vendors to adopt Hangout like functionality. If Google shut down Hangout, I would miss how reliable and high-quality it is compared to Skype, but there are a couple good alternatives now.
  - lepht 13y ago
    Can you link to a few that you've found useful?
- jff 13y ago
  Can we just fuck right off with the whining about Reader at this point?
prostoalex 13y ago
Same here, for any N-way conference call it's easier to jump into hangout. We use it extensively at work, can't speak for other Google+ features.

vor_ 13y ago

This has been explained before. Google+ numbers can be misleading because they're tied to other services. The article mentions this: "The reasons behind Google Plus's growth -- it now can boast 359 million active users, up 33 percent from 269 million users at the end of June 2012, according to GlobalWebIndex -- are complex and tied to Google's effort to build a connecting layer across all its services, including search, YouTube, maps and other products. Log into one, and you've logged into the lot."

adventured 13y ago
And Twitter's numbers are extraordinarily misleading, because so many of their accounts are fake, and so many people just sign up but never really use the service.
- fizx 13y ago
  The numbers you see externally are the same as the ones used internally to reason about growth, and a great deal of care has been taken to keep them accurate. Fake accounts are culled, and inactives or likely spammers aren't counted in the numbers.
  - adventured 13y ago
    Fake accounts are culled? Apparently not very well. To take one simple example, half of Bieber's followers are fake. I'd be willing to bet that between 1/3 and 1/2 of all followers on public accounts are fake. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/22104058 http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/22104058 Then on top of this, I'd like to see how many Twitter users post a few Tweets and then give up. It's not hard to calculate that data just by sampling a large number of users from the API. I'd argue it's an extreme portion of the supposedly active user base. Mostly Twitter is shallow (as in limited use and interaction) consumption platform, with relatively few highly active producers.
    - cantankerous 13y ago
      I think he meant that fake accounts were culled from the count, not in general.

bigdubs 13y ago

... that has no active users.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mtgx 13y ago
> On December 18, 2012, Twitter announced it had surpassed 200 million monthly active users. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

blappu 13y ago

Why doesn't Google just provide a tool to import a user's full Facebook data into Google+ with a single click? They could even do it without the user's consent for people using Chrome or Android, or they could pay people to do so (it might cost them 10 billions, but it would be quite a good "company" to "acquire"). Without doing that, or having some killer feature, there's no way that they will take off.

ceejayoz 13y ago
Facebook has a long history of disabling that sort of system.
- blappu 13y ago
  Uh? That's impossible to do. Facebook already provides a way to download all your data, so Google just needs to write software that uses it and uploads it into Google+. Alternatively, they can just automatically scrape the Facebook website via HTTP directly from the user's machine (using a modified Chrome, modified Android, desktop tool or Android app).
  - NegativeK 13y ago
    Scoble was banned from Facebook because he was scraping contact info. I'm fairly certain it's a violation of their Terms of Service. Given that that's unlawful access of a computer system (and kind of a dick move,) I don't think Google wants to go down that route.
  - irishcoffee 13y ago
    If I'm not mistaken, facebook owns their information. Taking it directly would violate their ToS. It would need to be a two-step process if it were to work at all: a user downloads their information locally, and uploads it to g+
  - ceejayoz 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act edit: for the downvoter, I hardly support the abuse of laws like this, but that doesn't mean they won't be abused. Google writing a scraper is something that might well attract legal trouble from this and other vague computer security laws.

Felix21 13y ago

What you mean is: Millions of people activated G+ so they can use Youtube and other Google services without Google getting in their face every 2 seconds to activate g+

edwardunknown 13y ago
So you're saying they're discovered a way to spend money maintaining a huge community that nobody actually uses! Quick, give that CEO another bonus!
- mindcrime 13y ago
  To say that "nobody uses" G+ is ridiculous. I don't even have that many people in my circles and I see a pretty non-stop stream of activity flowing through. Somebody is darn sure using it. Is G+ as active as Twitter? Hell, I don't know, but it's definitely - as another commenter here just said - not a "ghost town".

workbench 13y ago

not surprising when you converted all YouTubes profiles to G+ Profiles this month

w1ntermute 13y ago

As of late, I've been seeing more and more people active on G+. It's been quite a surprise, but I think the network is starting to pick up steam.

Sarkie 13y ago

I love it, I use Twitter, I used Facebook. Circles just does it for me. I care about these people today, I want to follow circle XYZ, I want to share this to Mates, Nerds, Android, etc. The Photo Albums is amazing and linked up with Instant Upload from my phone at full res when charging on a WiFi. I really like Google+ and wish it had come out before Twitter/Facebook.

rweba 13y ago

A lot of skeptics here (as usual!) Well I use both Google+ and Facebook every day and to me Google+ seems VERY active with a lot of high quality content as well. I can't really say if it is more active than Twitter (which is also very active of course) but it certainly doesn't seem like "a ghost town" as some people try to claim.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
I think Google+ has more active focussed communities of people using it (photographers, geeks) whereas Twitter has a wider variety of content.
nati 13y ago
facebook is getting worse day by day and google+ is really about high quality content

buster 13y ago

Well, i hope so. I still don't get the value of twitter, it always seemed to me as overrated. Why 140 characters? External services for photo upload? I still don't get it.. How is [1] better then [2]?! [1] http://www.imagebanana.com/view/okt9mdpq/obamatwitter.png http://www.imagebanana.com/view/okt9mdpq/obamatwitter.png [2] http://www.imagebanana.com/view/ma3vuvby/obamagooglep.png http://www.imagebanana.com/view/ma3vuvby/obamagooglep.png I hope i don't start a religious war now, just saying although i have a twitter account i never really got to use it... edit: changed screenshots to english versions

muuh-gnu 13y ago
> Why 140 characters? Historical. Twitter started out as a web-sms gateway. > I still don't get the value of twitter The value is in social capital. Important people post there exclusively. > How is [1] better then [2]?! It isnt. But [2] came to the scene after [1] so [1] has a bigger momentum. Being slightly better does not mean everybody suddenly will switch. The perceived improvement has to be bigger than the cost of switching.
glenra 13y ago
> I still don't get the value of twitter "Talk directly to semi-famous people" is one of the chief value propositions. Suppose you are a fan of some public figure - say, an actor or a politician who has more than thousands of fan - snd you want to ask that person a question or give them a compliment. If they're on twitter, there is a pretty good chance you could get through and have that person actually read what you have to say. If you're sufficiently witty and relevant it might even turn into a conversation. There is no other medium for which your chance of getting through is that large, and part of the reason why this is true is due to that 140-character limit. Consider the unread messages in your email inbox. Any single email you open might turn out to be a quick topical one-liner, carefully edited to make a single point clearly and say nothing extraneous...but it's much more likely to be rambling and poorly edited. In the worst case, it could take an hour to read and understand a single email. So sorting through email (or any other non-bounded message stream) is daunting and best delegated to somebody else if you get too much of it. The fact that tweets have to be so short forces tweeters to think carefully about what they want to say and to make their point quickly. If the message is a compliment or comment, it has to be an efficient one. If it's a question, it's an efficient question - you don't have to skim past a page of introductions and compliments and caveats to find it. And if the text is ugly or pointless or hateful, you can "block" the sender after you see a mere 140 characters of what he has to say. So that's one use case - talking directly to people who otherwise would be protected by a circle of PR flacks. You can currently do that more effectively on twitter than most other services. Even when talking to non-famous people, the 140-character limit imposes discipline that can make conversations more fun and efficient, but it only makes sense if some critical mass of the sort of people you like to talk to and hear from are already on the service, so it might not make sense for you yet. That's essentially a bootstrapping problem.

habosa 13y ago

I know the numbers are inflated due to tie-in with other Google services, but I'm very optimistic about Google+ long term. I got my invite in the first wave and pretty much immediately ditched the service. I just didn't see why I'd use it. I am a light Facebook user and I don't Tweet. Recently I decided to give G+ another try and I love what I am seeing. First of all, the site is a pleasure to use and the mobile app is by far best in class. Second, I think G+ is absolutely the best social network for those who are interested in following people outside of their friends. Celebrities on Facebook have something to sell, and on Twitter there's not enough room, but on G+ I get long, interesting posts from famous people around the world. I only have a few friends on G+ but I am starting to check it more and more and I can say without a doubt that if it ever hits critical mass I'll be the first to drop Facebook. Google simply has the latecomer's advantage, they got to watch Facebook stumble and build around those obstacles at their own pace. Also, Google+ sign-in is a great developer product. The deep-linking concept is a very interesting implementation of sharing for mobile apps that borrows from Android's intent system.

edwardunknown 13y ago
Google+ will be a fine replacement for Facebook when everybody gets the signal that FB has entered it's Newscorp-era Myspace phase. But there's another possibility: Facebook may end up leaving such a bad taste in people's mouths that it will be replaced by nothing. Both G+ and FB may fade away as the world collectively says "fuck this". You might say I'm a dreamer.
- cantankerous 13y ago
  It makes sense that G+ could outlive Facebook if only because it's so tightly integrated with a suite of products that are so widely used, where Facebook's primary external integration is through apps that aren't essential to the day-in-day out...at least not yet. I think Facebook has become to tightly woven into peoples' lives, though, that it's going to live on for quite some time. It all really depends on where the kids decide to go, methinks..
  - 13y ago

mvkel 13y ago

Define "outpace" In terms of sharing popularity, printing out a webpage is 100X more popular than Google+: http://karmcity.com/post/49275229257/the-value-of-share-buttons http://karmcity.com/post/49275229257/the-value-of-share-butt...

oneandoneis2 13y ago

Facebook's where I go for social stuff. Twitter's largely replaced RSS. Google+ has two uses: # It's where my Androids upload to # It's where I get tech news - Linus, Greg KH, O'Reilly, etc. all post on G+ I tend to hope G+ doesn't become as popular as Facebook with the general public, because right now it's got a really good signal:noise ratio and I'd hate to see it drown in Farmville updates and cat photos..

dbrian 13y ago
Just group people in circles and read the one you want.

iamwil 13y ago

This is a bit of a open secret. I think many in tech think Google+ is a ghost town, and so the joke goes, the only people that use it are Google employees. However, when I was looking around for 3D printer communities, I was surprised that there was a vibrant one on G+. While one data point is not evidence, it is an example that runs counter to the current prevailing tech wisdom that nothing happens on G+. I think while G+ may not replace FB, the interface is great, and we may find social networks have other uses for groups besides what we do on FB.

whatsup 13y ago

Google+ is high quality for me, integration with Drive, Gmail, etc. is hard to beat

guylhem 13y ago

If I was to badmouth Google after reading the article, and especially their tactic of tying-in the experience, and using youtube and google ranking to induce people to open and use a google plus account, I'd say they are leveraging their existing monopolies to acquire another monopoly in a separated industry. Naysayers would say that's an emotional response, but I would then let monopoly be defined by known indexes such as the HI and leave the conclusion to arithmetic instead of emotions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index I haven't done the calculation, but we may find interesting results - and I say that while I think google + is being turned into a nice product, with useless cruft being removed little by little, and some polish added. IMHO only the legality of their tactic is troubling - the product is becoming good. But would it have if they hadn't played dirty? I guess it's legal if you are not getting caught.

badclient 13y ago

If google+ was doing so well, Google Corp wouldn't be scared shitless to talk about engagement. Google+ is honestly more of a rebranding of google than a new service. It is Google relabeling parts of popular products like Gmail and calling it Google+.