The social media market is completely saturated with Facebook to the point that there really is no room for other social media sites….or is there? When Google + first came out many were skeptical about it; of course Google + had that heavyweight name behind it, but Facebook was, well, Facebook. Facebook beat out MySpace, FourSquare, and tons of other social media sites that are now unheard of. So when Google + first emerged, many were sure that it was destined for failure.
There were strong supporters of Google + but many more who predicted its imminent doom. With its initial struggle many thought that it would take a nose dive, but new information shows that it is doing better than those naysayers thought!
For a while there we saw Google + drop significantly in members, indeed there were reports that it lost at least 60% of its active members. Now we are receiving information on Google + growing significantly with reports saying 625,000 new users each day! At this rate it would be at 400 million users by the end of 2012!
Paul Allen, unofficial stat keeper for Google + and founder of Ancestry.com, has been tracking Google +’s growth patterns for quite some time now. With his new data it proves that Google + is actually making progress in the face of Facebook. Take a look at these numbers:
July 13th: Google + had 10 million users
August 1st: 20.5 million users
September 1st: 24.7 million users
December 1st: 50 million users
December 27th: 62 million users (notice the huge jump between just 26 days prior – this is likely due to holidays and commercials)
As you can see there has been exponential growth at Google + with a massive amount (approx. 1/4th) arriving in December of this year alone! Paul Allen thinks that the growth will continue to increase from 625,000 users each day due to several factors but mainly the Android.
Android phones see around 700,000 activations each day and this plays a crucial role in Google +’s traffic. Since the Android is targeted towards Google (obviously) there are more and more Android users signing up for Google + via their Androids due to the network effect.
Additionally more users will become drawn to Google + as more developers produce innovative features. Developers rely on API’s from Google (Application Programming Interfaces) and Google is constantly expanding their API’s to draw in more and more developers.
As people find friends, family, and a massive sharing community on Google + they will spread the word to their friends and the user base will continue to grow more and more with each passing day.
Google + is still in its infancy, growth hindered by the massive Facebook competitor, however it is putting up a strong fight and the tides are turning in its favor. Google + will most definitely see a more favorable year this 2012 however it still remains to be seen if Paul Allen’s predictions on 400+million users will be correct, or if he will underestimate the growth.
