Nobody Is Using Google+

http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-active-users-2015-1

by dredmorbius • 12 years ago

13 11 12 years ago

uk.businessinsider.com

dredmorbius6• 12 years ago

Data analyst / OP / Space Alien Cat here.

Methods: https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/nAya9WqdemIoVuVWVOYQUQ

(linked in the article)

Pastebin of the 4215 "active" profiles sampled for activity. In quotes as some actually aren't though they passed my initial regex screen.

http://pastebin.com/tmdcsKLZ

Source for the sitemaps is the G+ robots.txt file:

https://plus.google.com/robots.txt

dredmorbius6• 12 years ago

I'd also strongly recommend for potential critics:

90-9-1 rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture) http://www.nngroup.com/articles/participation-inequality/

Random sampling and error size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_sample http://www.randomsampling.org/

An independent estimate for number of G+ profiles, team includes a present Google Employee (per his G+ profile page). Validates my 2.2 billion number (via Thomas E. Hanna on G+):

http://plus.miernicki.com/

cheald• 12 years ago

Doesn't it seem a little odd to qualify G+ usage by public data numbers? I get that that it's what you have available, but if you used that method you'd probably conclude that Facebook has a fraction of the users they actually do, too.

I have no doubt that G+'s active usage numbers are weaker than Google would like, but it seems like quite the chasmic leap to declare that nobody's using it based on that.

dredmorbius6• 12 years ago

Drunks, keys, and streetlights: it's where the light is.

Yes, that's a weakness of the study (I'm the numbers guy), but it's also what's available. It also allows for direct comparisons with other platforms offering public posting. And in the face of a dearth of quantified metrics from Google, offers a data point.

mmorett• 12 years ago

And there's a reason why Google is hiding or manipulating their numbers. They're poor. If they were good, you know darn well they'd be bragging about them. So they play tricks and games to try to hide that data.

dredmorbius6• 12 years ago

FYI, I've extended the initial analysis to look at the publicly inactive profiles based on "views" numbers on profiles.

https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/RhnKkfTN...

Upshot:

The average (mean) publicly active profile has 25 times the views of the mean publicly inactive profile.

34% of non-public profiles show no views at all.

The median views is 693 -- two views per day if the profile's been active for only a year, less if longer.

Follower counts are far lower for publicly non-active profiles. To the 35%ile they have one follower -- for publicly active, that's the 20%ile (overall it's interesting how small follower counts are per profile).

Mean followers for inactives is 6.4, for actives, ten times that -- 66.4.

jordanpg• 12 years ago

That G+ is likely to fizzle is much less interesting to me than why a company with the might of Google was unable to make it work. I suspect that G+'s seeming fate is not particularly surprising to anyone in the tech sector under the age of 40 or so.

Social media technologies are about as remarkable as email accounts in the year 2015. And switching to G+ is the social media equivalent of switching to hotmail, at least in terms of public perception. And since public perception means a lot in a world where you have about 30 seconds to change minds, the G+ ship sailed several years ago.

dredmorbius6• 12 years ago

why a company with the might of Google was unable to make it work

Social is hard. Really hard. I've mused on that rap a lot myself.

dougabug• 12 years ago

I'm not sure why G+ should succeed. It's one of those, "Who ordered that?" propositions. I don't understand, does Google want to be all things to all people? I would rather that they brought self driving cars to commercial fruition as soon as possible, rather than try to clone Facebook, Twitter, Amazon or Apple's flagship products. Roll out Google Fiber everywhere, or at least in the Bay Area. Give us something we really need rather than uninspired versions of existing products. Total lack of focus.

Sarkie• 12 years ago

So bloody what.

I use G+, I like G+, it does what I need, Google haven't messed with it too much like FB does all the time.

Use whatever tool you like for the task.

What's with all these articles saying how no one is using G+, I assume they think Google are going to shut it down? Why would they, they can target me and create a profile around me....

Meh.

Nobody Is Using Google+

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