Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

marketingland.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 59 posts

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#21

Post by eblume »

Subscription counts in G+ are only a problem (to me) if:

A) They are too low for a user to engage anyone, which is simply untrue (I have lots of fun and engaging conversations - with strangers, often - on G+)

B) The product relies on a massive user base.

You'll have to ask Google about point B as far as profitability goes, but for me, point B does not apply because I don't care if my Aunt is on G+.

To me, G+ is a much nicer Twitter, and a way to organize and meta-tag my contacts. Nothing more. I use it every day and I am happy with it like that.

I would be very sad if G+ ever became like Facebook (which, in my very cynical opinion, is basically a 'happy birthday' rotary club & dating service).

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#22

Post by vladd »

lmkg wrote: post #17
bishnu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am inclined to agree with the conspiracy theory that if these secondary stats were any good, we would be hearing about them." I don't think it's that simple. Google publishes very few figures that have to do with its core profitability. For example, number of searches a day is not reported. I doubt it's because that figure isn't any good.

But in this case, Google is publishing numbers. Numbers that by their own admission aren't even trying to measure the right thing, and which seem to over-count that wrong thing anyways. Given that they're publishing any numbers at all, why are they publishing those numbers in place of more relevant ones?

After early-adopters, regular people will join only if their friends are already there.

Any user metric going upwards says "look, it's not a ghost town anymore" and drives future adoption.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#23

Post by Aloisius »

When Facebook says it has over 800 million active users, it really seems to mean people who came into Facebook and used the service in some way in a given month. They seem to be logged in and somehow actively using their accounts.

As I understand it, Facebook counts anyone who clicks a like button on any website as being an active user for the month too.

It wouldn't shock me if, as non-Facebook user, if they counted my visit to a public event page as me becoming active too.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#24

Post by loverobots »

Google also has a funny way of counting "shares": if I have 1 million people in my circles and tell them to check a story, 1 million shares just happened ("A million items were shared"). Technically they may be right but it's not how I see it, a million shares would be when a million people share it, not merely get something pushed in their pages.

To answer some comments, I think they are plenty of ways Google can share meaningful, easy to understand stats about G+, if they wanted to.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#25

Post by barredo »

Aloisius wrote: post #23

When Facebook says it has over 800 million active users, it really seems to mean people who came into Facebook and used the service in some way in a given month. They seem to be logged in and somehow actively using their accounts. As I understand it, Facebook counts anyone who clicks a like button on any website as being an active user for the month too. It wouldn't shock me if, as non-Facebook user, if they counted…

No , they don't. Facebook is pretty serious about that:

>   •   Monthly Active Users (MAUs). We define a monthly active user as a registered Facebook user who logged in and visited Facebook through our website or a mobile device, or took an action to share content or activity with his or her Facebook friends or connections via a third-party website that is integrated with Facebook, in the last 30 days as of the date of measurement. MAUs are a measure of the size of our global active user community, which has grown substantially in the past several years.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/0001193125120...

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#26

Post by [deleted] »

Aloisius wrote: post #23

When Facebook says it has over 800 million active users, it really seems to mean people who came into Facebook and used the service in some way in a given month. They seem to be logged in and somehow actively using their accounts. As I understand it, Facebook counts anyone who clicks a like button on any website as being an active user for the month too. It wouldn't shock me if, as non-Facebook user, if they counted…

[deleted]

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#27

Post by kristianc »

nextparadigms wrote: post #12
lmkg wrote: post #5

So Google's argument is that because G+ is pervasively integrated, you can use it without being on plus.google.com. While this is technically correct[1]... they're still being evasive. Not everyone using G+-enabled Google products is using the G+ bonus features. Rather than dancing around the single "user" number, Google could give more direct usage stats by breaking it down by feature. 20MM on plus.google.com, anoth…

Isn't Facebook doing the same thing and reporting active users as people who use the like button or post comments through their commenting system on 3rd party sites?

At one of Zuck's recent press calls, he said that they had taken a conscious decision to dial down on user numbers and instead talk about the amount of content that people were sharing.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#28

Post by ajross »

dirtyaura wrote: post #20
nextparadigms wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Facebook doing the same thing and reporting active users as people who use the like button or post comments through their commenting system on 3rd party sites?

Clicking the Like button falls definitely into the "actively uses Facebook" slot, but commenting on 3rd party sites is indeed a gray area. But I'd be surprised if there is a lot of people who use Facebook only that way. Anyone has any numbers that could shine light on this?

Does it really? Does everyone that sees a Like button actually understand what it does? I suspect not, and that a bunch of people click it just because they like the site and thing it looks fun to press. The same logic would say that anyone who hits a +1 button next to a search result is a Google+ user, which is equally silly.

I agree that numbers would be good here: how many Likes (or +1's) are hit by users without other recent activity?

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#29

Post by abraxasz »

vladd wrote: post #22
lmkg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in this case, Google is publishing numbers. Numbers that by their own admission aren't even trying to measure the right thing, and which seem to over-count that wrong thing anyways. Given that they're publishing any numbers at all, why are they publishing those numbers in place of more relevant ones?

After early-adopters, regular people will join only if their friends are already there. Any user metric going upwards says "look, it's not a ghost town anymore" and drives future adoption.

Well, that's assuming people actually believe what Google. And even they believe what Google says, they don't have any compelling reason to switch from Facebook until their friends actually do switch.

What I mean is that even assuming that people believe google's statement of "it's not a ghost town anymore", they are probably not going to move until it actually stops being a ghost town.

Re: If Google's Really Proud Of Google+, It Should Share Some Real User Figures

#30

Post by rachelbythebay »

If you are running a social network, then you publish how many people are actively doing stuff inside of it. Clearly, they are not doing this.

If you are running an identity service which provides more information for the targeting of advertisements, then you publish how many "enhanced" profiles you now have. What you are trying to do is reach the people who would like to do that kind of advertising. Every time that number grows, it's even more inviting to them.

G+ can succeed on their own terms even if nobody ever posts a single thing to it. If you've populated your profile with information, they have already succeeded.

Post reply on HN