Updated November 22, 2021
Reading Time: 2 minutesSocial Search Struggles
Developed to combat Facebook, Google launched its own social media network in 2011. Nearly three years later, there are increasing rumors that Google+ is dead… or at least dying. In this post we’ll explore recent news articles and what could be on the horizon.
Google+ Dead or Still Breathing?
According a Forbes article in late April, there are some impressive Google+ users, including the Dalai Lama (5.2 million followers). The writer goes on to ding Google with “over-quantification,” the network’s penchant for sharing stats about a profile’s number of views, followers and other scoring related to how well posts are shared.
The Huffington Post’s opinion about whether Google+ is dead? Rather than a flatline, they think it’s in a “coma and on life support.” This article appeared the same week Vic Gundotra, the Googler running Google+, announced he was leaving the company after nearly eight years. Many interpreted this as the beginning of the end. Especially since many of the employees who built Google+ have been reassigned to other teams. By the way, Vic continues to post regularly on Google+. Dead or still breathing? My vote is for still breathing with a steady heartbeat.
A Steady Heartbeat
Google+ has some very loyal users. We may lean toward the geekier side, but it’s a vibrant community. I’ve developed real business relationships, connecting with others who share relevant and helpful information via the Google+ ecosystem.
According to an official Google report posted by +Vic Gundotra, here are some interesting stats about how well this social channel is doing:
- 540 million active across Google each month
- 300 million active in Google+ stream
- 1.5 billion photos are uploaded every week
Who Cares?
Perhaps I have a contrarian view… but who cares how quickly Google+ is growing? From a business perspective, if the platform provides a way to reach and engage others with similar (business) interests, does it really matter if it has 300 million active users or 1.3 billion*?
* Source: Statistic Brain –Facebook’s stats as of January 2014
photo credit – top: Wonderlane
photo credit – body: Bruce Berrien