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Google Formidable!


Parsad

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Growing faster than the others was almost a given (barring a catastrophic launch) because they have a bigger existing user base, BUT, it is still very impressive for an invite-only social network that hasn't even launched publicly yet and that still has un-announced features. That rate of growth won't hold for very long, but all these users are sure to create a lot of value for GOOG even if they don't catch up to facebook any time soon..

 

One thing is for sure, they definitely have gotten many million dollars worth of free publicity over the past month, as G+ has been discussed everywhere repeatedly.

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I don't use any social networking site except this message board...really!  ;D  So all of you who have ever forwarded me an invite to your Linkedin, Facebook page or any other networking site, I apologize, as I won't ever join.  Cheers!

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I can say from personal experience that at least 95% of my friends and family are still NOT able to join Google+, I think Google+ is going to annihilate Facebook. There is a very good interview that Vivek Wadhwa gave to Bloomberg about this as  I will try to post it but you can probably find it by googling. Essentially he predicted that Google+ will surpass Facebook within a year, and that Facebook is most likely going to make a last run for it with an IPO. If I am not mistaken he called Facebook the next Myspace..

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Part of the game, eventually everything gets replaced.

 

Even here in Belgium, where I haven't heard anyone talking about Google+, most news websites and others already included the "+1 button" and it is gaining share fast.

 

Just like Parsad I never had any social networking account (And I am 22. Is that contrarian or what?  ;x) but I can definitely see the appeal in Google+. The option to make separate social groups within your network is unique and will be attractive to a lot of people. It might even be something I would join!

 

I like how it is linked with my gmail account and other things like google finance. I believe this really gives an edge that others don't have.

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okay,

 

but has anyone here used Google+ and actually liked it?

 

Yes. + is better designed than Facebook, for the most part, but social networks are all about people. Almost none of my friends are on Google +, so I rarely use it.

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okay,

 

but has anyone here used Google+ and actually liked it?

 

I'm on it and think it's very well made. And because of the asymmetric follow (like Twitter), it doesn't matter as much if your friends aren't all on it at first. You can follow a bunch of interesting people (I follow many Google engineers, journalists, scientists, etc) and still have a very full stream, and over time more real-world acquaintances will surely join (they can't all be early adopters who get in invite-only, right?).

 

One interesting thing I've noticed is that on G+ the average public post will get many more comments and +1s than on Facebook, despite the smaller overall size of the audience, and it will also be more elaborate (more text, more pictures). This points to a high level of engagement, which is a good sign. I also see a lot of people do public hangouts (video chats with up to 10 people) and comment on how great they are.

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You can have separate groups on Facebook (our classes 50th reunion, our high schools 100th reunion, etc) or am I missing something.

 

You can. It's just not a fundamental part of the architecture like in G+, it's not as easy to use, and it's not used as much by actual users.

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You can have separate groups on Facebook (our classes 50th reunion, our high schools 100th reunion, etc) or am I missing something.

 

You can. It's just not a fundamental part of the architecture like in G+, it's not as easy to use, and it's not used as much by actual users.

 

Plus it wasn't there from the start which means people are less likely to go and set it up now after the fact.  With G+ it's one of the most highly advertised features.

 

I'm kind of surprised that some don't use facebook etc, and yet invest in technology.  While I wouldn't say it's a requirement it definitely gives you a leg up.  Along the lines of 'circle of competence'

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I like G+ more than Facebook, very much due to the circle structuring, but this far they entertain totally different niches in my case. G+ is for intellectual exchanges, following high-grade academics etc (more as a complement to Google Reader than a social network in the FB/Myspace sense). This is pretty obvious if you look at the gender distribution of users... As long as G+ has nothing to offer more than nerds discussing topics they are interested in they will never overtake Facebook. The transition from the userbase as of now to a more mainstream one seems hard to make since the two worlds don't overlap that much.  

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I like G+ more than Facebook, very much due to the circle structuring, but this far they entertain totally different niches in my case. G+ is for intellectual exchanges, following high-grade academics etc (more as a complement to Google Reader than a social network in the FB/Myspace sense). This is pretty obvious if you look at the gender distribution of users... As long as G+ has nothing to offer more than nerds discussing topics they are interested in they will never overtake Facebook. The transition from the userbase as of now to a more mainstream one seems hard to make since the two worlds don't overlap that much.  

 

The transition to a more mainstream user base will be interesting to watch, and it could go either way.

 

But I think GOOG did the right thing with the launch. If they had opened it to everybody from the start, including brands, twitter feed auto-republishes, etc, it would have been a huge mess of spam and short updates that nobody cares about.

 

Instead, they seeded it with the 20k+ google employees, who then invited people they knew and journalist/important bloggers/known influencers. This got them tons of coverage, and what everybody saw when they first joined was more thoughtful posts and lots of comments (rather than short "today I went to the dentist. lol" updates). This is very important, because getting culture right matters, and it's very hard to change once it's set.

 

On twitter I have 7k followers, and I follow back a fair number. But my feed is mostly just people linking to somewhere, with lots of spam, and it's hard to reach just a sub-set of that 7k.

 

On facebook, my problem is that half of my "friends" are people from work (Anglophones), another part is family and friends (Francophone), and another part is people I vaguely knew at one time. There's nothing I want (or can) post to all these people, and it's a major pain to set up groups and have others reciprocate with groups, etc, so I locked my wall and deleted all my updates. I only use FB as an address book for private messages now.

 

On G+, every time I log on there are interesting posts and stories because I follow a bunch of interesting people (like on twitter, except they can write more than 140 characters and I can easily see what others responded to the original post),and if I want to post something it's dead easy to make sure only people I want to write to will get it. Seems like a big improvement.

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"Half of my "friends" are people from work (Anglophones), another part is family and friends (Francophone), and another part is people I vaguely knew at one time.

 

Liberty are you from Montreal?

 

BeerBaron

 

Nope. Closer to Ottawa. Are you in MTL? I was born in Laval...

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Yeah I'm from Longueuil. Glad to know some people in Quebec think about money ;)

 

I have an uncle in Longueuil, been there a few times.

 

Malheureusement, il ne semble pas y avoir beaucoup de gens qui s'intéressent à l'investissement au Québec...

 

I see so many people mismanaging their money and making what Buffett would call unforced mistakes.

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Guest valueInv

Google+ has reached 25M users faster than any other social network:

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-02/google-reaches-25-million-visitors-faster-than-any-other-social-network.html

 

I also read earlier in the day that Android now has 50% of the phone market!  Cheers!

 

That's 25M visitors, not users. Google+ is an open site, so you don't have to be a member to view content unlike FB which does not let you in unless you sign up. This does not mean Google plus has 25M accounts.

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Google+ has reached 25M users faster than any other social network:

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-02/google-reaches-25-million-visitors-faster-than-any-other-social-network.html

 

I also read earlier in the day that Android now has 50% of the phone market!  Cheers!

 

That's 25M visitors, not users. Google+ is an open site, so you don't have to be a member to view content unlike FB which does not let you in unless you sign up. This does not mean Google plus has 25M accounts.

 

Actually, they're probably at over 25M unique users by now since the invites haven't been closed. Last solid number I saw was 18M users and that was more than a week ago.

 

I think the journalist just uses the wrong terms, in this case. They often do that.

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