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

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

plus.google.com

175 pointsyanw58 comments

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.

Um, no. It wasn't "from a private Google-staff-and-their-friends" beta, it was from the modestly-controlled semi-open beta that ran along the same lines as the earlier gmail "beta" with "invite codes" given fairly plentifully to everyone already using the service.

There were millions of people with no close connection to Google already using G+ by the time the floodgates were fully opened on September 20th, which is the magic day DM chooses for their laughable reporting.

"Floodgates fully open"

But enough of a difference between the "modestly-controlled semi-open beta" and "fully opened" to see a a 1200% increase.

The floodgates opened, the tide rushed in, the tide ran out. How is this a success for Google+?

Five times more users, that stayed.

No. 5x more traffic.

Oh, thanks.

And yet still a decidedly non-mainstream audience:

http://socialstatistics.com/top/people/followers/0

G+ has no hope unless they can somehow break into the mainstream. It's not looking good right now.

So 5 out of 10 most followed users are mainstream celebrities three and a half months after launch? Seems pretty good to me.

Quit changing the topic. You asked "How is this a success for Google+?"

What's the bar now? Suddenly being #1?

Anyways, whatever. I'm not on G+ because I'm not a fan of their real-name policy and I certainly don't care if they win or lose. I was just pointing out that you were playing the same game the newspaper was - asking a crazy question given the nearly five-times increase in traffic over a single month.

No topic was ever changed - we all know Google is in this game to beat (or at least, take a significant minority share) of Facebook's traffic.

The number of users it gained need not be relevant to this goal - they need to gain the right users, and so far that's just not happening. They've won over the technorati, and puzzlingly enough, the photography community. But how many of your non-tech friends are actually on G+? Much less using it?

> ""How is this a success for Google+?""

For one thing, that wasn't me. But let's say it was. Your claim that traffic jumped by 5x is supposed to imply that this was a success for Google - but it's nothing of the sort. Without breaking into the mainstream, Google has no hope of capturing the type of market share, ever, that they are clearly after.

Google is not in this to build a niche social network for the techno-elite.

> "What's the bar now? Suddenly being #1"

What a ridiculous straw man. Nobody says G+ needs to be #1 overnight. But at least movement in the right direction (i.e., mainstream appeal) is necessary if one is to reasonably claim that G+ is succeeding. That's simply not happening.

> "I was just pointing out that you were playing the same game the newspaper was - asking a crazy question given the nearly five-times increase in traffic over a single month."

The newspaper asked a relevant question. Are we supposed to just blindly swallow any number and interpret it in the default manner? By your logic, Groupon is smashingly successful company with strong growth numbers - but we know it's not playing well into their end-game. Neither is this playing into G+'s desired endgame.

Whatever happens with G+, I hope it stays around. It's twitter with longer posts, and facebook without the idiots. Aside from the network effect not having kicked in yet, it really is an ideal service for me.

We had a service like that in Finland, called Qaiku. Now quite a lot of the users seem to have migrated to Google+

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

There's also this spectacular database of what causes and cures cancer (as reported by the DM):

http://kill-or-cure.heroku.com/

(also applies to reply below... and has been linked already! oops)

True, it's not known as "The Daily Fail" for nothing.

So far there isn't a definitive decision on whether Google+ gives you cancer or not - http://kill-or-cure.heroku.com/a-z/g

I assume that this is a reference to their excellent "Facebook gives you cancer" piece:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1149207/How-using-...

Always worth another look if you want a reminder how far the press has fallen.

I thought this was a reference to Ted's "Node is Cancer":

http://teddziuba.com/2011/10/node-js-is-cancer.html

Seems that nowadays lots of things are cancer.

The Daily Mail (the paper in question here) often seems to be on a quest to divide everything in the world into two groups - things that cause cancer and things that cure cancer.

I was disappointed to see this story pop up in my Techmeme feed yesterday. IMHO getting tech stories from the Daily Mail is dangerously close to jumping the shark...

Non-UK readers are missing a hell of a lot when it comes to the Daily Mail and the Express. Not even Fox News could top it.

Give it a few weeks and Princess Diana will be found alive on G+.

http://insights.chitika.com/2011/failure-to-launch-google-gr... is the source article.

the 1200% number came from "Reportedly, Google+ saw a surge in traffic of over 1200% due to the additional publicity, but the increased user base was only temporary, as was projected in an earlier insights post." and the 60% drop came from "But, soon after, traffic fell by over 60% as it returned to its normal, underwhelming state."

but the graph right below that shows Google+ going back (in Chitika's "traffic index", whatever that is) to just about where it was before it was made public. as a result, I don't think those two numbers can be composed, and the "heh, guess 480% doesn't count for anything" smugness I've seen from a couple different places is based on everyone else's misconception of what the numbers mean.

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

They probably don't get any credit because the signal-to-noise ratio is so low. I'm sure you've got a few decent contributors, but my impression of your online opinion section is that it's little more than a soapbox for any idiot to the right of Paul Krugman. No barrier to entry at all, and certainly no requirement for intellectual honesty and rigor.

Tim's analysis in Forbes _is_ the source of the misleading "480%" statistic -- and the Forbes headline trumpeted the equally-misleading 60% statistic. So, while I think that Forbes' blogs are frequently quite insightful, this wasn't one of your better moments.

Agreed. Here's my take on it: http://wegetplus.net/2011/10/10/google-traffic-down-60-or-up...

> On the day they opened the floodgates to the public, traffic immediately spiked by 1,200%. These new people were mostly enthusiastic new users. But a minority was tire-kickers who didn't stick around.

> When the dust cleared, total traffic was nearly five times higher than before the doors opened.

A 1200% to <500% drop is categorized as a "minority" of users leaving?

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.

going to my google account settings page, there are two options to shut down functionality, "Delete profile and social features" and "Delete account".

If the difference between "profile" and "account" is confusing, clicking on either explicitly lists the data and services you will be shutting down ("Delete account" even includes a checkbox by "gmail" that you have to click before it will allow you to actually delete your account).

It doesn't seem terribly confusing.

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)

> Ultimately they may have to give SmartPhone makers some incentive to stop bundling the Facebook app/integration on their devices.

Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

I'm not trying to be snide either, Microsoft leveraged its relationships with OEMs to incentivize them to stop bundling netscape. I don't think that Google would play that dirty, but it's certainly thin ice.

Google isn't a monopoly.

But they probably have the size and the market power that would make regulators take an interest in such behavior.

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.

And push Facebook into bed with Apple? Riiight.

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.

The Daily Mail (and Sunday Mail) is a right-wing, racist, anti-science paper which goes out of its way to seek out inflammatory and exaggerated headlines to scare the public and sell more papers. I wouldn't give them the time of day.

I have to respect the balls with which they present utter nonsense, and the purity and refinement of their art of utter nonsense.

Google:Social::Microsoft:Search

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 ~~

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...

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.

orkut was released in 2004, although it wasn't promoted as heavily as Google+ is now and Google wasn't using it to create a social layer for the Internet.

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.

I feel like G+ is like a breath of fresh air after having 50 or more mundane minutia thrown at me every few minutes on Facebook. It's exhausting, especially that new ticker.

G+ is clean, wide open and just the content people want to share at that moment. Not also what page they liked 3 months ago, the last 4 spotify songs they listened to and all the comments they made on other people's posts they made (that are often not even people on my friend's list. Hello privacy?!?)

how do you know that this isn't due to the (small, even if we're being charitable) size of the community rather than a G+ design choice? if it's the former rather than the latter, your days of liking G+ are numbered.

well the argument of number is tricky since nobody has the number except Google. But another product of google's own, Google Trends, do help to see the decline. See here:

http://bit.ly/rlq9aR

And the even sadder thing is, even if "Google+ now opens to everyone", the search term of google+ has retreated to near the low level of post-launch. sigh ...

that is people searching for 'google+'

a more accurate graph is:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=plus.google.com&ctab=0...

and that only shows up until the end of Sep and doesn't include the few days last week that google+ was linked to from the homepage of google.com

They are a bit less than allrecipes.com

http://www.google.com/trends?q=plus.google.com%2Callrecipes....

7M uniques: http://www.quantcast.com/allrecipes.com

I would estimate G+ getting 5M uniques. However, what would be interesting is to know the pageviews.

Facebook recently said they had recieved 500M visitors in a single day.

I don't think pageviews per visit is anywhere near what it is in Facebook - probably even by an order of magnitude. That is just my own perception from using it, though.

Facebook really do know how to suck time out of their users.

Vanity metrics much? A huge part of the reason why Google+ will fail is Google's encouraging spread of vanity metrics instead of just admitting that Google+ has a serious, serious challenge and is still on course to die(it's already pretty irrelevant in the made-up social networking wars).

Heck I'd venture to say that myspace.com has more engagement than Google+. And that is after Google shoving G+ onto its users.

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