facebook rss twitter

Google+ 90 million subscribers confirmed, but who's using it?

by Steven Williamson on 23 January 2012, 14:41

Tags: Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qabbon

Add to My Vault: x

Google claims that over 90 million worldwide users are now signed up to its social networking platform, with over 60 percent using the site daily and 80 percent on a weekly basis

Though Google+ still has a long way to go to get close to Facebook’s 800 million users, it’s an impressive figure bearing in mind it only launched in June last year. Apparently, it took Facebook four years to reach the same amount of subscribers .

Indeed, Google+ CEO Larry Page is excited about its success so far, claiming the service is "growing tremendously" with users more than doubling over the same period last quarter.

The latest figures for Google+ subscribers were revealed during last week’s quarterly earnings call, but some analysts have been skeptical of the claims after Google failed to offer a breakdown of the numbers.


'Hangout' to video-chat, one of Google+'s many features

Suspicions as to exactly how many Google+ subscribers actually use the service have been raised because Google automatically signs up new Gmail users to the social-networking service, whether they're interested or not, and has been doing so since November.

Requests made to Google to produce figures that don’t include people who have logged into a Google session to check emails or view Google documents have fallen on deaf ears though, while some companies have accused it of using its own search engine unfairly for self-promotion.

Page doesn’t seem too worried about speculation at this point, though it would be very interesting to see how Google arrived at its figures.

"I am super excited about the growth of ... Google+, which now has 90 million users globally — well over double what I announced just three months ago," said Page. "By building a meaningful relationship with our users through Google+ we will create amazing experiences across our services."


HEXUS Forums :: 17 Comments

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!
ScaryJim. :mrgreen:
I don't really have reason to doubt the numbers. G+ is getting busier all the time and Google has made it much more obvious to get at from the Google home page, than say, Wave. I'd imagine that rate will only increase as Android 4.0 is rolled out to more devices (and more ICS phones/tablets sell), G+ is given more prominence on that.
I'm skeptical. I don't know *anybody* that's using Google+ regularly.

The biggest issue is that Google+ doesn't offer anything that Facebook isn't already doing. Google also have a brand issue - they're unable to sell ‘cool’. Microsoft tend to have the same problem, which is why they ditched MSN Spaces and invested in supporting Facebook instead.
Basically every gmail user has an account, I don't know anyone that uses it. I try not to use gmail too as it's become massively inferior to hotmail.

MSN could have been THE social network as they had such a massive base to start with but I don't think they invested enough in to it. I remember my friends and I having msn profiles etc but you couldn't really interact through them.
How many of those ‘subscribers’ are actually using the site on a remotely regular basis?

I suspect a lot of them are like me. I created an account out of curiosity, but I never use it because about 3 of my friends are active on it, so there's no reason to use it instead of Facebook.