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Comment by ary | Hacker News Reader

It would be wise to note that G+ achieved 10 million+ users in a matter of weeks. Comparing Facebook and Google+ along similar time frames shows that Google+ is doing phenomenally well.

The comparisons aren't really that important (to me at least). It's possible that these products can (and will) coexist. What is with the need to pronounce a winner as soon as possible? A product like Google+ is going to take a while to gain a user base and mature (just like Facebook). Launching in the shadow of a massive competitor (just like Facebook did VS MySpace) doesn't call for an instant death-knell.

I'll repeat something I've said here before. People said the same thing about Chrome weeks after it launched. It. Took. Time. How about sitting back and letting things shake out a bit before pontificating?

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The rapid growth of Google Plus compared to Facebook isn't really a valid comparison. When you are the number one site on the Internet (probably #1 or #2 email provider too?) and you add a new black bar to every page letting people know about your service, it's no surprise you gain X million users overnight. I agree with your thoughts that it's too early to count G+ as a failure just yet, but something about their rollout did cause it to lose steam. Most of my Facebook friends are aware G+ exists now... they just don't know why they should check it in addition to Facebook. It's the same problem any future search competitor has to Google, you have to be an order of magnitude better for people to switch.

We agree. Hence my statement:

> The comparisons aren't really that important (to me at least).

IIRC correctly Yahoo mail is still a larger provider of email addresses than gmail, maybe hotmail too.

Of those 10m users there are only 5 that I know. If they had opened G+ up to all current Gmail accounts and Apps accounts they could have made a huge impact, there was enormous buzz around my college campus (where everyone had an Apps for Education account) but nobody could get in. When FB opened itself up to non .edu accounts it had swept my school in weeks because there was no barrier to entry and people wanted to try it out. Even though there were far fewer users on FB then than G+ now you had social circles joining en masse creating a foundation for a usable network. For most younger people your group of friends likely joined all around the same time, which couldn't happen with G+.

Instead of universal limits on access, Google should have kept the first iteration a truly closed and internal beta then opened it up to everyone.

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