Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline. • Hacker News Board

Re: Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

#21

Post by kposehn » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 12:10 AM UTC

Ok, instead of reading the daily mail or various G+ posts, I went to the source: Chitika.

They show a clear spike and return back to normal levels, as can be seen in the graph on this page: http://insights.chitika.com/2011/failure-to-launch-google-gr...

Key Notes:

1. Chitika's conclusions from the data are sketchy and I don't put much stock in them.

2. The overall spike and rapid decline back is undeniable and troubling.

3. The press of course likes headlines and Google is most certainly not a media darling any longer, thus the news sensationalizing a relatively humdrum statistic.

~~ Chitika's headline is quite clearly accurate ~~

Re: Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

#22

Post by taylorbuley » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 12:20 AM UTC

vogonj wrote: post #13

yanw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data in question is suspect as no hard data is shown nor are they saying on how many users the report is based on or how they were able to measure traffic at all. Chitikta is a Google competitor of sorts their business is ads and they do have a strong partnerships with Facebook.

this link is some tech blogger's recapitulation of a Forbes tech blogger's expose of a Daily Mail article announcing Chitika's press release. how is it any more trustworthy? at least Chitika's page has a graph on it (though they're tight-lipped about what that graph represents.)

As a Forbes employee, it bothers me that it appears that Forbes is the source of the misleading statistic rather than the outlet that published the analysis of its incoherence.

We have a lot of really smart non-staff contributors (like Tim here, or my personal favorite Timothy Lee) and they never get enough credit for the independent thinking and analysis

Re: Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

#23

Post by liuliu » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 12:21 AM UTC

phlie wrote: post #10

Being the size Google is, I sometimes wonder why it took them so long to come up with an alternative to Facebook. If they had of launched Google+ back in 2005 or 2006 I think they would have had a decent chance against Facebook but launching in 2011 was just a bad business move.

No, you ignored that social network was not what it is today. And Facebook played an important role in shaping what the social network should look like. Google had its social networking site at that time, but they failed to iterate on it. Facebook's success is not accidental, there were a lot effort and thinking into it to make what it is today, and people shouldn't take it for granted to say that they can come up with a Facebook alternative in 3 months at 2005.

Re: Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

#24

Post by there » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 12:21 AM UTC

jsz0 wrote: post #5

I assume there will be much tighter integration of Google+ into the next major release of Android which should help solve the 'ghost town' problem so many people are seeing with Google+ at this point. Ultimately they may have to give SmartPhone makers some incentive to stop bundling the Facebook app/integration on their devices. (or just make their own)

I assume there will be much tighter integration of Google+ into the next major release of Android

that won't happen, if only because google maintains complete control over any android applications that interact with its services. gmail, voice, market, etc. are all closed-source proprietary applications that ship with most phones and are not part of android's open source code base.

integrating any g+ features into android would also mean that google would not be able to push out any updates to that code to take advantage of new features. some phone carriers/vendors release devices and never send out updates for them. at least with separate applications, google would be able to push out updates through the market.

of course, that's not to say that google won't develop a tightly-integrated application for g+, but that is possible today with android's current api and doesn't have to be a part of the system.

Re: Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

#25

Post by nikcub » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 12:27 AM UTC

kposehn wrote: post #21

Ok, instead of reading the daily mail or various G+ posts, I went to the source: Chitika. They show a clear spike and return back to normal levels, as can be seen in the graph on this page: http://insights.chitika.com/2011/failure-to-launch-google-gr... Key Notes: 1. Chitika's conclusions from the data are sketchy and I don't put much stock in them. 2. The overall spike and rapid decline back is undeniable and troubl…

Key Note: The Chikita graph measures a 'traffic index', which could be anything.

The bump is because G+ launched last week and it was linked to from Google.com - the most popular web page in the world

Show me a product that has launched and not experienced a traffic 'bump'

If you measure the backend of that bump, you will always show a decline. Zoom out.

And that is not to mention that Chitika do not publish their traffic collection methodology. It is just some chart they pushed out to bloggers in a press release (with their branding on it!) and all these bloggers have been far too quick to publish.

edit: this tilted me enough that I wrote a blog post about it : http://nikcub.appspot.com/lies-damn-lies-and-google-statisti...

Re: Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

#26

Post by JonesTyner » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 12:32 AM UTC

HankMcCoy wrote: post #7

their double standard on real/fake names is a disgrace. they ban people for using their internet handle that they have been using for the last 15 years and on the other hand celebrities like madonna or 50 cent are allowed to use their artist names

This is, indeed, terrible. I guess we should all make music.

Re: Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

#27

Post by sambeau » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 12:54 AM UTC

FuzzyDunlop wrote: post #11

The source is the Daily Mail. Anyone familiar with that rag will know never to take whatever they say as truth. Surprised they didn't run with 'Google+ gives you cancer'.

Funny. True in general. But in this case The Daily Mail aren't necessarily being deliberately disingenuous.*

What the original post is saying as that when the doors opened to the public, Google+ traffic went up nearly 5-fold in a month from a private Google-staff-and-their-freinds beta.

Even if we ignore the fact that it went up 1200% and then dropped back again, 5-fold seems a little disappointing.

Also, surely it is correct reporting to point out that there was a massive drop-off effect. People signed up in their droves, tried it and then left.

No matter how Google try to spin this, it can't be good. If Google+ continues to slowly build back over the next few months then maybe they will be fine. But, based on a small biased sample of my 'social graph' it doesn't look like it.

*—I can't believe I'm defending The Daily Mail.

Re: Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

#28

Post by simonsarris » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 1:04 AM UTC

FuzzyDunlop wrote: post #11

The source is the Daily Mail. Anyone familiar with that rag will know never to take whatever they say as truth. Surprised they didn't run with 'Google+ gives you cancer'.

I hate to post trite things on HN but if you haven't heard of the Daily Mail there is a good (and humorous) summary of the paper made into a song using only their headlines:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

Re: Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

#29

Post by rjd » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 1:08 AM UTC

FrojoS wrote: post #8

lolz wrote: post #4

Tried to close my Google+ account and the choices it presents were confusing at best ( this will delete your Google+ and also/maybe your Gmail? ) So instead chose a fake last name and got banned. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED :)

You got banned after changing your last name? Are those bans done by hand? I know, that they have a real name policy but so has Facebook. A lot of my friends and family changed there real names into fake names on Fb. Nobody got ever baned.

I had my name changing rights taken away on Facebook. I got a message saying I had breached the rules to many times and my punishment was keeping the last name I entered LOL

I used that fake name for 2-3 years and only decided to try changing back recently and it worked. I wonder if it was a bluff by Facebook and I could have changed again at any time however.

Re: Google+ traffic grew by 480% in one month so press reports a 60% decline.

#30

Post by saturdaysaint » Tue, Oct 11, 2011, 1:08 AM UTC

jsz0 wrote: post #5

I assume there will be much tighter integration of Google+ into the next major release of Android which should help solve the 'ghost town' problem so many people are seeing with Google+ at this point. Ultimately they may have to give SmartPhone makers some incentive to stop bundling the Facebook app/integration on their devices. (or just make their own)

And push Facebook into bed with Apple? Riiight.