Which would be great if checking a feed meant more than logging into your gmail. Also it would be super if it were still 2006 and the only way to sign up was a .edu account. Since it's 2012 and most of the activity is driven by Gmail I'd say it's a glacial pace.
When your marketing tools are the frontdoor of the internet as well as everyone's INBOX, and you're outdone by 11 guys with an iPhone only photosharing app, you know you're doing something wrong.
It's a service so bad you can't even be forced to use it. It's as pathetic as MSN.com not being the front page of the internet despite 90% of computers defaulting to it.
> Which would be great if checking a feed meant more than logging into your gmail.
If you read the actual announcement it would be clear that when they say "stream-actives", they are not including people logging into Gmail.
"Today Google+ is the fastest-growing network thingy ever. More than 500 million people have upgraded, 235 million are active across Google (+1'ing apps in Google Play, hanging out in Gmail, connecting with friends in Search...), and 135 million are active in just the stream."
No offense, but that's a dumb measure of activity. None of those things actually requires engaging. I can +1 an app that I used once or do a google hangout because it's more convenient than skype. That doesn't mean I use google+. The activity feed part of the site is mainly crickets.
I think you missed my point, which was that the Wired article is citing the number from the second half of that sentence: "and 135 million are active in just the stream." (not the first number, which includes people who just +1'd an app)
I don't think the statement in the blog post could be much clearer, you just have to read the whole sentence :)
Google PR: "Google today announced that it has 135 million active users checking their Google+ streams each month."
Facebook PR: "Oct 4, 2012 - More than one billion people are active on Facebook."
These are "reports" based on PR-based spin and "rounding up." That's all. If you were a manager at one of these companies, wouldn't you sell the same schtick?
If you +1 things and use hangouts, 'using Google+' is exactly what you are doing...
You might only be at the bottom rung of MAU's with a tiny level of engagement, which if common would be easily identifiable by looking at other metrics. So it's possible they are purposely deceiving us with misleading metrics - but you are indeed a G+ user. Albeit, not a very valuable one.
I am not in doubt about these statistics, but the perceived reality is far from what Google is trying to suggest. From my personal experience G+ is still a ghost town (as far as seeing activity from my friends).
I think the general consensus I'm getting is that Google+ isn't necessarily a place for you to connect with your friends. I use it primarily to connect with people I don't know that share common interests. I suspect many others do the same.
My own experience is the same. Our facebook page has over 2000 likes, our twitter feed has about 360 followers, but we only have 19 people following us on google+ (even though we've been on there for a year, post all the same things on google+ and promote our g+ page as much if not more than the others).
On a personal note none of my friends uses google+ (only my wife). They pretty much all use facebook.
I guess. I check it every day. It's true that G+ is driven more by "interest communities" than by "friends and family links". Most of my activity there is reading and occasionally commenting on the posts of people more famous than I. So I think it's fair to say it hasn't achieved Facebook's level of success. Nor, perhaps, will it any time soon.
But again, I check it every day, which is the same thing I do with Facebook. If you want my eyeballs for an ad, either platform provides the same value. I'm probably not typical, but I'm not completely weird either.
I think you can only look at G+ as a success at this point. Just not a success on the scale of Google Search or Facebook.
'It's true that G+ is driven more by "interest communities" than by "friends and family links".'
And that is one of the main reasons I prefer G+ over Facebook. Facebook is nice to keep in touch with ones family and friends (old and new), but G+ is where I can follow (and occasionally interact with) a number of luminaries, visionaries and tech leaders. God forbid my family and friends fill up my G+ stream!
If G+ never catches up with Facebook in terms of numbers, I'll be the happier for it.
Most people I see on G+ when I approach them and ask in person did not even know they had a G+ account... but guess what, they did have a Google Account for Youtube and Gmail.
You can see more and more G+ integration into Youtube, why not just turn Youtube into G+ altogether?
Success being quite relative. I was forced to sign up to both Gmail and G+, because that's what my employer requires, and I wanted the job.
I access Gmail exclusively through my Windows Phone. I don't use G+ at all. The community of interest thing doesn't hold much water for me, because I've yet to be pointed at something of interest on G+ that I wouldn't find elsewhere.
Not saying that my particular scenario reflects everyone else's, but it does seem to work for me and my friends, most of whom have GMail accounts as their primary mail address.
If success is defined in terms of ad impressions then that won't work with me either. I use an ad blocker.
I don't get why Google + goes after Facebook, when it is sooo much better positioned to go after LinkedIn. Most of what Google + does well is what LinkedIn needs to do better. If Google+ allowed people to upload resumes, they would dominate. Think about the value of a Google search friendly resume, coupled with a community graph.
I can understand some people being fatigued from companies defining their own metrics to justify success. In some cases, its comical.
Google is more susceptible than many to this reaction because of their industry position, and their attempts to reign users of traditionally heterogeneous apps into a more monolithic service. We'll see this again when they finally bring Youtube into G+.
That's an interesting question. Obviously human beings are more than capable of splitting up into tribes of haters, even in cases such as social media where one can, at no real cost, participate in them all.
But, while generally there's less "holy war" drama of this type on HN than you might find on a generic tech news site, on the topic of Google Plus succeeding there seems to be more.
My personal (and not particularly charitable) assumption is that in addition to the people who'd normally relish a dispute of this type, there's also a subset of people on HN who feel on some level that their experience as early/heavy Facebook adopters will give them some sort of "leg up" in understanding or creating the future, and if something competes with Facebook, it threatens their "insight".
This particular theory aside, it does seem mysterious to me.
I hate the incantation of "You mad, bro" so incredibly much, but then again, I'm also tired of people who still don't get it. "There's no one on it". Yeah, and if you open a Twitter account and don't follow anyone then it looks like there's no one on it.
I actually suspect I'll eventually end up being counted in those statistics, because I'll break and "upgrade" to join some Coursera/Udacity hangout. It will still be the only way I'll use it, but the stats will look great, I'm sure.
It wasn't a good idea to just copy-paste a newsfeed on top of your gmail contacts. Also trying to be everything all at once is usually a bad choice. It might fare better if it had been more private or work-oriented, something like a yammer on top of gmail. Right now the product is unfocused and confusing at best.
Personally, I think Google should just "declare victory" and move to other more important things. They certainly do have have the people for that (the important things), but I feel they're wasting a huge amount of resources on this without much gain (if any).
When your marketing tools are the frontdoor of the internet as well as everyone's INBOX, and you're outdone by 11 guys with an iPhone only photosharing app, you know you're doing something wrong.
It's a service so bad you can't even be forced to use it. It's as pathetic as MSN.com not being the front page of the internet despite 90% of computers defaulting to it.