People are parroting the following numbers endlessly, but they haven’t bothered to actually understand what the numbers actually are.
Yes it sounds cool that G+ is now number two in social networks for active followers (343,000,000 to Facebooks 693,000,000 and Twitter’s 288,000,000). It’s a big number. Google can give themselves a pat on the back.
But here’s the thing. All users are not created equal. Some are far more important than others. Some post more. Some have more influence.
If I wanted to follow celebrities (you don’t need to comment saying that you don’t want to do that, the reality is many people do), then I’d be far better off on Twitter. That’s why Twitter gets far more media attention than even Facebook. Because it’s where the media people are.
Which is probably why we still here the G+ is a ghost town stories. Perception is reality.
So What Does The Number Mean?
Well it means G+ is here to stay (if you had any doubt). It means we can expect further growth and further expansion throughout the Google products. I think it means eventually YouTube will end up fully integrated.
What Doesn’t The Number Mean?
It doesn’t mean Facebook is dead (or even dying). There’s really no evience of that at all at this point.
It doesn’t mean G+ is more important than Twitter. If you need media attention, you need Twitter.
It doesn’t mean you’re better for being on G+.
Google+: Reshared 2 times
Google+: View post on Google+
I like G+ because it is full of “real” people and I am not going to say what you told me not to say.
I find little use for Twitter. I can post a link to a blog post on it and I will get maybe 1 hit. On the other hand not only do I get hits from Google Plus, but also discussion. And Facebook, well, it is just a cesspool of maladjusted people.
Didn’t take long for someone to miss the point.
There’s a time and place for all three. Sometimes I’ll post the same thing in each media — interesting to see the response results, but it doesn’t actually prove anything.
I follow different … attitudes in each place. I don’t know who follows me, so much.
And what was your point? That they are useful for different things and media whores do not use G+?
There were several points but that very last line I wrote is kind of crucial It doesn’t mean you’re better for being on G+.
I could have written that another way I guess. It doesn’t mean the people on G+ are better
And yet already the anti-facebook or anti-twitter comments have started.
Anytime you bring up all three you are going to get anti– statements. I think it is unavoidable. Yes all three have their uses, but the fact is some people will find one or another more useful. I do not think one can realistic say, “all social media is equal for all people. It is just their uses are different.” That would not hold true for everyone. As to whether the people on one of the three are better than those on the others I would agree, they are not. As to whether the interaction is better, well, I think it depends on what folks want out of a social media outlet.
I actually think it’s entirely reasonable to expect people to think enough not to immediately parrot the standard anti– line.
If they’ve got nothing new to offer after all, there’s really no need for them to speak on the subject.
I disagree. I find anti– statements very useful if you can get how and why people feel that way. You can actually get down to how people use the different social media. I do not follow famous people so I find Twitter of little use. I use it to post links due to the 140 character limit. And that seems to be something it is not useful for. Facebook I use to connect to friends and family as that is where they are, but to be honest due to the constant bickering I sometimes wonder why I am still on there. It is not FB’s fault. It is just the culture that has developed there. Still, it is useful for posting links, and sometimes getting some interaction. Google Plus for me gets the best interaction (not the most necessarily), and seems to be good for posting links. So while I agree people are no better on one social network than another, their uses differ for me, and I found some social media better for me than others. In that respect the numbers do reflect something. More and more people may be finding G+ better suited to their uses.
Well several things there +Berry Canote.
1) The anti– statements don’t give any of that information so they aren’t helpful. On the contrary they tend to be dismissive of other people using things differently. A perfect example is your original post where you simply dismiss Facebook as a “cesspool”. That is essentially a worthless comment and thus my frustration
Now your most recent comment actually has substance. The problem is essentially the network you have on Facebook which has built up an unfortunate culture. This is not inherent in the technical structure of the site though.
2) I even addressed the Twitter case direct. I specifically asked people not to talk about it, because it’s been hashed to death. People will constantly complain about celebrities and yet they are some of the most popular accounts on all the social networks. Empirical evidence then shows that many people do want to follow them, so the continued complaints are unnecessary.
3) One of the other key points I was addressing with those numbers is that while they are “active users” that doesn’t really give us any indication of level of activity. So really no it doesn’t tell us that people have discovered that G+ is more suited to them. It might be a supplemental social network in their world view. Those sorts of basic numbers are highly misleading.
+Eoghann Irving I can see what you mean about the anti– statements.Though I do think, in the case of Facebook that some of it is the technical structure that is creating the culture. FB filters your newsfeed. You do not see a lot of what is posted. Since politics and other controversial topics are often the most “liked” and commented on in a feed it is more likely if you have even participated once that such posts will be seen. Meanwhile, other posts you may be interested in may never be seen even if you have participated in the past. I have yet to figure out the FB algorithm. You also do not have control over who you see in your feed. Facebook decides that for you. You can form lists, but even that is not a guarantee that you will see all of their posts. I have a couple of good friends whose posts do not show up in my close friends list despite their being on it. Meanwhile other friends I see whenever they even “like” someone else’s posts even if I have no interest in that topic and have never shown an interest in that topic. So some of the problem I think is the technical structure of the site. It is not inherently bad as it has its advantages in that your posts are seen much longer on Facebook if they do make it through the filters.. That is they last a lot longer than on Google + or Twitter where they can disappear in all the other posts and tweets. So from that technical view Facebook has its advantages.
I do agree the numbers are misleading. My brother and I were just talking about that. Do these numbers reflect those that actually go to the sites, or merely those tweeting, liking, and plus oneing from another site? One can “like” webpages and have that show up on FB without visiting the FB site. The same is true of Twitter and Google +. Do these interactions count one as an active user? Anyway, I have to retract my previous statement that folks may be finding G+ more suited. The numbers may not reflect that.I do know it is more suited to my needs and I have heard others say the same.
I plussed because of exactly that last line you wrote up in your post +Eoghann Irving
i resent FB being called a cesspool, thems my relatives your talking about.
that being said, i prefer g+ because i can choose who i associate with. i can choose how much “news” feeds my personal stream.
my relatives know nothing about my g+ account and i hope to keep it that way. don’t get me wrong, i love my family but if i get one more inane posting (chain posts, cute fuzzy little animals, and other nonsense) i’ll.… mind you this is only my personal experience not a comment on FB, G+ or Twitter as a whole.
Of all the people sharing this information graphic to justify all the excitement among the Google faithful, few seem overly concerned with the little data accompanying this one bar chart from one source. Within the written analysis it’s mentioned that Twitter actually experienced the greatest growth in that same quarter (40%). Few are mentioning that or asking the more important question of what defines an active user on Google+, let alone, the point you bring up, who is on here.
If you view your favorite media sources and content generators, many are getting far less interaction on here than the other two networks. As a quick experiment I took a look at the New Yorker’s presence here and checked the interaction on their posts here compared to Twitter and Facebook. There were less than a total of ten comments and plus-one’s with no shares.
People will go where the crowd they run with like to hang out, for many it’s here but that doesn’t come at a cost to other networks, it just means the demographics and usage diverge more than maybe we thought.
* Ouch, sorry for the long reply.
yes — we, the users, are being fragmented into the different platforms