Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/113117251731252114390/posts/AZh8wwb76vR

by yanw • 15 years ago

175 58 15 years ago

plus.google.com

vogonj3• 15 years ago

http://insights.chitika.com/2011/failure-to-launch-google-gr... is the source article.

the 1200% number came from "Reportedly, Google+ saw a surge in traffic of over 1200% due to the additional publicity, but the increased user base was only temporary, as was projected in an earlier insights post." and the 60% drop came from "But, soon after, traffic fell by over 60% as it returned to its normal, underwhelming state."

but the graph right below that shows Google+ going back (in Chitika's "traffic index", whatever that is) to just about where it was before it was made public. as a result, I don't think those two numbers can be composed, and the "heh, guess 480% doesn't count for anything" smugness I've seen from a couple different places is based on everyone else's misconception of what the numbers mean.

yanw• 15 years ago

The data in question is suspect as no hard data is shown nor are they saying on how many users the report is based on or how they were able to measure traffic at all. Chitikta is a Google competitor of sorts their business is ads and they do have a strong partnerships with Facebook.

vogonj3• 15 years ago

this link is some tech blogger's recapitulation of a Forbes tech blogger's expose of a Daily Mail article announcing Chitika's press release.

how is it any more trustworthy? at least Chitika's page has a graph on it (though they're tight-lipped about what that graph represents.)

jdp232• 15 years ago

Agreed. Here's my take on it: http://wegetplus.net/2011/10/10/google-traffic-down-60-or-up...

badclient• 15 years ago

Vanity metrics much? A huge part of the reason why Google+ will fail is Google's encouraging spread of vanity metrics instead of just admitting that Google+ has a serious, serious challenge and is still on course to die(it's already pretty irrelevant in the made-up social networking wars).

Heck I'd venture to say that myspace.com has more engagement than Google+. And that is after Google shoving G+ onto its users.

lolz• 15 years ago

Tried to close my Google+ account and the choices it presents were confusing at best ( this will delete your Google+ and also/maybe your Gmail? )

So instead chose a fake last name and got banned. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED :)

FrojoS• 15 years ago

You got banned after changing your last name? Are those bans done by hand?

I know, that they have a real name policy but so has Facebook. A lot of my friends and family changed there real names into fake names on Fb. Nobody got ever baned.

rjd• 15 years ago

I had my name changing rights taken away on Facebook. I got a message saying I had breached the rules to many times and my punishment was keeping the last name I entered LOL

I used that fake name for 2-3 years and only decided to try changing back recently and it worked. I wonder if it was a bluff by Facebook and I could have changed again at any time however.

magicalist• 15 years ago

going to my google account settings page, there are two options to shut down functionality, "Delete profile and social features" and "Delete account".

If the difference between "profile" and "account" is confusing, clicking on either explicitly lists the data and services you will be shutting down ("Delete account" even includes a checkbox by "gmail" that you have to click before it will allow you to actually delete your account).

It doesn't seem terribly confusing.

jsz0• 15 years ago

I assume there will be much tighter integration of Google+ into the next major release of Android which should help solve the 'ghost town' problem so many people are seeing with Google+ at this point. Ultimately they may have to give SmartPhone makers some incentive to stop bundling the Facebook app/integration on their devices. (or just make their own)

alexgartrell• 15 years ago

> Ultimately they may have to give SmartPhone makers some incentive to stop bundling the Facebook app/integration on their devices.

Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

I'm not trying to be snide either, Microsoft leveraged its relationships with OEMs to incentivize them to stop bundling netscape. I don't think that Google would play that dirty, but it's certainly thin ice.

streptomycin• 15 years ago

Google isn't a monopoly.

there• 15 years ago

I assume there will be much tighter integration of Google+ into the next major release of Android

that won't happen, if only because google maintains complete control over any android applications that interact with its services. gmail, voice, market, etc. are all closed-source proprietary applications that ship with most phones and are not part of android's open source code base.

integrating any g+ features into android would also mean that google would not be able to push out any updates to that code to take advantage of new features. some phone carriers/vendors release devices and never send out updates for them. at least with separate applications, google would be able to push out updates through the market.

of course, that's not to say that google won't develop a tightly-integrated application for g+, but that is possible today with android's current api and doesn't have to be a part of the system.

saturdaysaint• 15 years ago

And push Facebook into bed with Apple? Riiight.

HankMcCoy• 15 years ago

their double standard on real/fake names is a disgrace.

they ban people for using their internet handle that they have been using for the last 15 years and on the other hand celebrities like madonna or 50 cent are allowed to use their artist names

JonesTyner• 15 years ago

This is, indeed, terrible. I guess we should all make music.

option1138• 15 years ago

Google:Social::Microsoft:Search

phlie• 15 years ago

Being the size Google is, I sometimes wonder why it took them so long to come up with an alternative to Facebook. If they had of launched Google+ back in 2005 or 2006 I think they would have had a decent chance against Facebook but launching in 2011 was just a bad business move.

jaredsohn• 15 years ago

orkut was released in 2004, although it wasn't promoted as heavily as Google+ is now and Google wasn't using it to create a social layer for the Internet.

liuliu• 15 years ago

No, you ignored that social network was not what it is today. And Facebook played an important role in shaping what the social network should look like. Google had its social networking site at that time, but they failed to iterate on it. Facebook's success is not accidental, there were a lot effort and thinking into it to make what it is today, and people shouldn't take it for granted to say that they can come up with a Facebook alternative in 3 months at 2005.

FuzzyDunlop3• 15 years ago

The source is the Daily Mail. Anyone familiar with that rag will know never to take whatever they say as truth.

Surprised they didn't run with 'Google+ gives you cancer'.

sambeau3• 15 years ago

Funny. True in general. But in this case The Daily Mail aren't necessarily being deliberately disingenuous.*

What the original post is saying as that when the doors opened to the public, Google+ traffic went up nearly 5-fold in a month from a private Google-staff-and-their-freinds beta.

Even if we ignore the fact that it went up 1200% and then dropped back again, 5-fold seems a little disappointing.

Also, surely it is correct reporting to point out that there was a massive drop-off effect. People signed up in their droves, tried it and then left.

No matter how Google try to spin this, it can't be good. If Google+ continues to slowly build back over the next few months then maybe they will be fine. But, based on a small biased sample of my 'social graph' it doesn't look like it.

*—I can't believe I'm defending The Daily Mail.

nknight• 15 years ago

Um, no. It wasn't "from a private Google-staff-and-their-friends" beta, it was from the modestly-controlled semi-open beta that ran along the same lines as the earlier gmail "beta" with "invite codes" given fairly plentifully to everyone already using the service.

There were millions of people with no close connection to Google already using G+ by the time the floodgates were fully opened on September 20th, which is the magic day DM chooses for their laughable reporting.

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

Whatever happens with G+, I hope it stays around. It's twitter with longer posts, and facebook without the idiots. Aside from the network effect not having kicked in yet, it really is an ideal service for me.

simonsarris• 15 years ago

I hate to post trite things on HN but if you haven't heard of the Daily Mail there is a good (and humorous) summary of the paper made into a song using only their headlines:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

FuzzyDunlop3• 15 years ago

There's also this spectacular database of what causes and cures cancer (as reported by the DM):

http://kill-or-cure.heroku.com/

(also applies to reply below... and has been linked already! oops)

wgx• 15 years ago

True, it's not known as "The Daily Fail" for nothing.

carlio• 15 years ago

So far there isn't a definitive decision on whether Google+ gives you cancer or not - http://kill-or-cure.heroku.com/a-z/g

Tyrannosaurs2• 15 years ago

I assume that this is a reference to their excellent "Facebook gives you cancer" piece:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1149207/How-using-...

Always worth another look if you want a reminder how far the press has fallen.

maushu• 15 years ago

I thought this was a reference to Ted's "Node is Cancer":

http://teddziuba.com/2011/10/node-js-is-cancer.html

Seems that nowadays lots of things are cancer.

mpclark• 15 years ago

I was disappointed to see this story pop up in my Techmeme feed yesterday. IMHO getting tech stories from the Daily Mail is dangerously close to jumping the shark...

FuzzyDunlop3• 15 years ago

Non-UK readers are missing a hell of a lot when it comes to the Daily Mail and the Express. Not even Fox News could top it.

Give it a few weeks and Princess Diana will be found alive on G+.

ashleyw• 15 years ago

The Daily Mail (and Sunday Mail) is a right-wing, racist, anti-science paper which goes out of its way to seek out inflammatory and exaggerated headlines to scare the public and sell more papers. I wouldn't give them the time of day.

hessenwolf• 15 years ago

I have to respect the balls with which they present utter nonsense, and the purity and refinement of their art of utter nonsense.

yvolution2• 15 years ago

well the argument of number is tricky since nobody has the number except Google. But another product of google's own, Google Trends, do help to see the decline. See here:

http://bit.ly/rlq9aR

yvolution2• 15 years ago

And the even sadder thing is, even if "Google+ now opens to everyone", the search term of google+ has retreated to near the low level of post-launch. sigh ...

nikcub3• 15 years ago

that is people searching for 'google+'

a more accurate graph is:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=plus.google.com&ctab=0...

and that only shows up until the end of Sep and doesn't include the few days last week that google+ was linked to from the homepage of google.com

chintan• 15 years ago

They are a bit less than allrecipes.com

http://www.google.com/trends?q=plus.google.com%2Callrecipes....

7M uniques: http://www.quantcast.com/allrecipes.com

I would estimate G+ getting 5M uniques. However, what would be interesting is to know the pageviews.

Facebook recently said they had recieved 500M visitors in a single day.

powertower• 15 years ago

> On the day they opened the floodgates to the public, traffic immediately spiked by 1,200%. These new people were mostly enthusiastic new users. But a minority was tire-kickers who didn't stick around.

> When the dust cleared, total traffic was nearly five times higher than before the doors opened.

A 1200% to <500% drop is categorized as a "minority" of users leaving?

kposehn• 15 years ago

Ok, instead of reading the daily mail or various G+ posts, I went to the source: Chitika.

They show a clear spike and return back to normal levels, as can be seen in the graph on this page: http://insights.chitika.com/2011/failure-to-launch-google-gr...

Key Notes:

1. Chitika's conclusions from the data are sketchy and I don't put much stock in them.

2. The overall spike and rapid decline back is undeniable and troubling.

3. The press of course likes headlines and Google is most certainly not a media darling any longer, thus the news sensationalizing a relatively humdrum statistic.

~~ Chitika's headline is quite clearly accurate ~~

nikcub3• 15 years ago

Key Note: The Chikita graph measures a 'traffic index', which could be anything.

The bump is because G+ launched last week and it was linked to from Google.com - the most popular web page in the world

Show me a product that has launched and not experienced a traffic 'bump'

If you measure the backend of that bump, you will always show a decline. Zoom out.

And that is not to mention that Chitika do not publish their traffic collection methodology. It is just some chart they pushed out to bloggers in a press release (with their branding on it!) and all these bloggers have been far too quick to publish.

edit: this tilted me enough that I wrote a blog post about it : http://nikcub.appspot.com/lies-damn-lies-and-google-statisti...

omnibot• 15 years ago

I feel like G+ is like a breath of fresh air after having 50 or more mundane minutia thrown at me every few minutes on Facebook. It's exhausting, especially that new ticker.

G+ is clean, wide open and just the content people want to share at that moment. Not also what page they liked 3 months ago, the last 4 spotify songs they listened to and all the comments they made on other people's posts they made (that are often not even people on my friend's list. Hello privacy?!?)

vogonj3• 15 years ago

how do you know that this isn't due to the (small, even if we're being charitable) size of the community rather than a G+ design choice? if it's the former rather than the latter, your days of liking G+ are numbered.

Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

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