Google Plus

It’s been a few days since we’ve posted anything about Google+, but that definitely doesn’t mean it’s slowed down like we first heard.

In fact, the new social network has reached 25 million users in less than a month, according to comScore and engagement on the site is also increasing.

Last week Experian Hitwise, reported that Google+ users were spending less and less time there and that visits fell by 3%. The average time on site had also fallen by 10%, they said.

But, comScore’s research is showing that people spent around 50% more time on the network in the week ending July 24th than the week ending July 10th.

What’s with the recent growth and more time on the site? Andrew Lipsman, vice president of industry analysis at comScore, said during a conference call that Gmail penetration seems to be the key factor. He said, “If you think about it, Gmail is where your social network through Google is likely to exist”.

Are you spending more or less time on Google+ these days?

According to Ancestry.com co-founder Paul Allen, Google+ should have reached around 18 million users yesterday. It’s still the fastest growing social network and is setting records like crazy, but do these numbers show Google+ is losing steam?

18 million sounds incredible for the amount of time the network has been alive, but that means its growth rate is down by about 50%.

In a Google+ post Allen said, “Last week we saw two days where more than 2 million signed up in a single day. If that rate had continued, Google+ would have reached 20 million users by last Sunday night. But the last four days have averaged only 948,000 new users and yesterday the site added only 763,000. Yesterday’s growth of 4.47% was the slowest viral growth since Google opened up invites back on July 6th.”

Why the slow down in growth? Mashable points out that according to Google Trends, the Google+ buzz has slowed a bit.

The growth may have slowed for the time being, but as Allen points out in his post, Google hasn’t brought out all the big guns quite yet.

He said, “Google hasn’t started marketing Google+ through any of its other channels yet. More than a billion people worldwide use Google products, including its top rated search engine, YouTube, and Blogger. Chairman Eric Schmidt says the vision is to integrate Circles and sharing with all the other Google properties. When that happens, you will likely see millions of people joining Google+ every day for some period of time.”

I definitely don’t think the Google gods are worried about the slow down at the moment, do you?

Did you hear that William Shatner’s Google+ account was suspended for “violating standards” but was then reactivated?

After being suspended, he tweeted “My Google+ account was flagged for violating standards. Saying hello to everyone apparently is against the rules maybe I should say goodbye?”

Most are guessing that the reason his account was suspended was because Google+ does not have verified celebrity accounts yet, so they had no way of knowing if this was an impersonator or the real deal.

That’s about to change according to CNN and emails they received from Google. Apparently, Google is working on a “celebrity acquisition plan”. They aren’t releasing any details as of yet, but did say “We plan to add a lot of features and functionality to Google+ over time.”

Being verified on Twitter has become a big deal for celebrities, so it makes sense for Google+ to do the same.

After getting his account back, Shatner said “I am back plusers. I still do not know what happened but I will refrain from saying hello again for a while just in case. My best, Bill”.

It will be interesting to see which celebrities start using Google+ and exactly HOW they use it will be even more interesting.

Source: CNN

It’s the greatest growth in social media ever. Google+ has reached 10 million users! Just this past Saturday (July 9th), its numbers were at 7.3 million and if the invite button stays active, the prediction is it could reach 20 million users by this weekend.

What do these numbers show us exactly? It shows people are curious as to what another social network has to offer. It shows the demand for another social network is obviously there. Yes, Facebook has 750 million users, half of who log on daily, but the Google+ numbers seem to show it has a fair chance of surviving and staying a fierce competitor.

Bill Gross, founder and CEO of Idealab, is very impressed with the growth of Google+. In fact, he’s made his own numbers prediction in this post.

I predict that Google+ will go from 0 to 100,000,000 users faster than any other service in history.

Okay, that’s a bold proclamation – here’s why I think it will achieve that.

The service is great. It is timely. People are engaging with it like crazy. There are rumors that there are already 4.5m people. That might be high. It might be as low as 1m, or even lower, but my guess is that it’s more than 1m people already. That already is probably the fastest growing service (0 to 1m) ever. Now it’s not completely fair, since when Facebook started, and when Twitter started, etc. those were tiny companies, and Google is huge. However, the product is extremely well executed, and a lot of people are smitten.

The next year will tell. Will there be bumps in the road? Sure. Will Facebook and Twitter fight back with more innovation? Of course! But I’m saying that Google+ is already good enough, and the team on Google+ is being so responsive in a way that makes me believe they have a real winner here.

Let me know what you think. Am I being too optimistic? I can’t wait to see how this next year in Social Networking plays out.

What do you think about the growth of Google+?