Google+ Usage In Free Fall?

[mikmik]

I like Google+ far more than Facebook. Sparks, and circles, especially Sparks. I like to choose categories to follow, WebDev, NHL hockey, Music genres and whatever else I choose. That way, I receive updates from a big variety of people and sites just by searching a keyword.
I find G+ far more user friendly, and understated yet very functional and intuitive. Facebook bothers me. Whats with these bloody privacy popup boxes every time I check my feed? Bug off, put a link in the menu or sidebar, quit covering up other content I want to see.
G+ has a cleaner interface... I just don't like Facebook, it seems old fashioned already.
I am not very knowledgeable using Social networks, though, and I could be missing things. But for useability, G+ blows FB and Twitter away.

As for traffic, MJ, I'm not reading much on that and it's a surprise to me. I'm not contesting it,, by any means. I agree that right now, G+ is a niche for techy types, but it's still in beta, and invites are sparse. The stat I keep reading is that membership is constantly growing by the millions. Seems like about 10m/month.
G+ should reverse the traffic trend once membership grows big enough, I am sure. 100 mil? Who knows. Right now, until memberships are open, everyone is still on facebook and that's where the action is. People that want sharing among friends have little reason for G+, so after checking it out, they go to FB mostly. I only visit G+ every few days myself, but FB many times, usually for just minutes at a time to see whassup? with gossip or whatever.
Anyways, I think I'll post my invite link on FB

[GeoffreyYu7]

Google+ gained something like 10 million follows in the first 2 days it came out of Beta. I think Facebook is still more attractive not because of its features, but because of the number of people on it. The more people on G+, the more activity will sustain itself.

[williamc]

Google+ gave google something they wanted, a whole lot more data about each and every one of us. Social profiling if you will. I doubt google really cares if it fails for mainstream users at all.
Look at google+ really hard, it is laid out in a way that will appeal mainly to web business people.

hindsight is 20/20. I said this when they first announced it.

[jim60723]

For past couple of months people were waiting for Google+ Pages and been using profile as a business page. Which leads to blocking profile. For past couple of months Google have been asking to businesses to wait for a while and now when the page has arrived what do you think? Did it meet your expectation? What do you think it could compete with the Facebook Pages?

Last month Chitika reported: Google+ Traffic Falls 60% After Public Launch. After release of Google+ Pages can they overcome this fall or Google+ Pages will be lost like Google Wave & Google Buzz. Remains a question.

[deepsand]

Analysis: Facebook now boasts 1000 times more Web referrals than Google+, while Google lays out an unimpressive blueprint for its business pages.

Although Google has not been forthcoming regarding the number of active users on Google+, stats suggest that the site is failing in its bid to take away Facebook's market share.

One data source pointing to Google+'s steady decline comes from Net Applications, which tracks from month to month the number of Web referrals coming from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and Google+. Over the past five months, Google+'s share of Web referrals has steadily dropped, while Facebook's has held fairly steady.

More at Google+ Struggles to Stay Relevant.

[Talks_44]

I've always been skeptical when I hear about Google+ taking over and knocking FaceBook down a bit. I've just not seen much that was different and/or better from Facebook. You can't beat something by doing the same thing or making it more complicated to do the same thing. A key factor of Facebook is its simplicity. I see Google+ being greatly used by businesses etc, but I don't think it will take away facebook's market share. Nothing has shown it's worth yet really.

[deepsand]

Google+ really is a man's social network.

According to figures released today from Website-Monitoring.com, two-thirds of Google+ users are men, which stands in contrast to Facebook, where a majority of users are women, including 55% in the U.S.

If Google+ cannot attract women, it is doomed to being a niche player.

More at Two-Thirds of Google+ Users Are Men.

[Regenesis]

Whats actually happening on G+ is users have created their profiles on it, but not using it regularly as it doesn't have something new and classy to offer.

Almost all the features which are available on G+ are there on Facebook except few like hangouts and spark but that wont attract 800 million online users of Facebook.

Currently the only users that are active on G+ are marketers while the most of the 'real' users have simply created their profile and left.

[deepsand]

While true, even if all of the Google+ users were active, the demographics are not favorable for its achieving widespread acceptance.

[Regenesis]

Yeah agreed! Google Plus still needs more time and improved features to have world wide acceptance.