The recent report of unique visitor’s traffic from Compete shows great growth in all of the social media platforms. Much anticipated Google+ seems show fastest growth among the giants with 20 Million Unique Visitors on the url plus.google.com
The biggest jump that any social media platform ever experienced was during last quarter of 2011. With only 3.1 Million in August 2011 to 13.4 Million in September 2011. That’s a more than 10 Million unique visitors hike. This raises more expectations with Google+, the Glue behind Google Services.
Facebook, after much debate of underestimating Google+ as the smaller version of its supremacy, continues steadily. With over 171.5 Million unique visitors, Facebook is by far the biggest social network available on planet.
However, what we can analyze here is not a very good success in itself for Facebook. Quite recently when they unveiled the much criticized feature of Timeline as the primary interface of user’s profile, Facebook actually didn’t experience much user interacting during that period. There was only 7 Million unique visitors raise from August 2011 with 155 Million to November 2011 with 162 Million. That’s exactly the same time when Google+ won the biggest hike of them all. If Facebook continues to generate not enough interest with new features, they might stop thinking extra-ordinary or out of this world ideas and bring something more simple and engaging for users to make them use the platform.
Facebook was actually lucky enough to generate a steady pace in the competition of Google+ as compared to Twitter who actually found a dip during that August 2011 period. Twitter lost almost 2 Million unique visitors from August 2011 with 36 Million to September 2011 with 34 Million. However, after showing some potential, Twitter remains the second biggest social platform in terms of unique visitors with 40.4 Million unique visitors at the end of December 2011.
Last but not least, the social-o-professional media platform LinkedIn continues lingering on the stats table. Often steady but also lost some about 2 Million unique visitors until the year end and remains with 24 Million unique visitors. People ask me why include LinkedIn in such a tight war between Google+, Facebook and Twitter, I continue to have good hopes with LinkedIn and will continue analyzing them until they completely vanish from the landscape.
The competition continues, what’s your poison?
Update
As the article posted on Google+ by Denis Labelle, several people made valuable comments. Here is my response to some of them. Follow the post here and keep sending in comments.
1. I think Google+ will not that quickly surpass Facebook in the number of registered users. Because its easy to fake and spam on Facebook, which ultimately allows one person to have dozens of profiles. I for one, use to have more than one profiles in the early days, one for my college fellows where I can post game requests on my wall and have insane number of bot friends to help me on Mafia Wars, and one for my family and teachers where I was just a good nerdy boy. Thanks to several privacy settings which took years to evolve, Google+ on the other hand is more realistic, less chance to create bots, spams and fakes. So evaluating them with the number of registered users is unfair.
2. I think we can not safely relate it as IE vs Chrome war. I think IE vs Chrome war is like KFC vs McDonals. However, Facebook vs Google+ war is like KFC vs Pizza Hut. They both are junk foods, but have quite different taste and niche. Secondly, IE lost its grounds 2 versions ago. Facebook on the other hand are competitive fellows. Unlike IE, Facebook have learned from their mistakes, and continue to deliver better features. So I see as a tough future for both of them.
3. To me, practically Google+ Hangouts is the only differentiating point which gives Google+ an edge. The core idea of engaging with real people. Its not easy to fake, spam or bot a video chat. Facebook on the other hand have good ties with Microsoft in terms of Bing integration, and I don’t think it will be difficult for them to bring Skype engine and start something like Hangouts.
4. Mentioning Bing integration on Facebook, those who regard Google+ as a search for content, can consider Facebook as a search for almost every 3rd person on planet. The niche is different, but they have a plus of being old in the arena. And I do call it a fair game when Google give priority to Google+ posts on the main search results.
5. +Michael Beck you can also put it this way. From June to Dec 2011, Net result, Facebook went from 146 Million to 171 Million, gained almost 25 Million, while Google+ went from 0 to 20 Million in that very period. So comparing a rookie’s score of just 20% less than the years old veteran player is not that bad either. I call it Game On!
6. I’d like to answer these individually:
1) Not enough of their Facebook network will make the jump, so this is a waste of their time.
A: so you’re looking for more population? How long did it take for the world to Jump from mIRC to MSN? or orkut to facebook?
Just ask them, what are you looking for when you open facebook? funny videos? status updates? text chats? Google+ has it all, Plus funny Hangouts!
2) Not enough relevant content to them. (Which ties into #1)
A: you are not following enough relevant people.
3) Too much effort to rebuild their social network from scratch since you couldn’t easily import your Facebook friends as-is.
A: That’s true, Facebook don’t allow you to take your contacts away, and that the cruel of them, one more reason for me Not to use Facebook. Facebook doesn’t own me. These are my contacts, and I can take them wherever I want.
4) Too hard and confusing to follow the streams and circles.
A: Are you a twitter user with more than 500 followers each on average make than 20 tweets a day? how do you manage lists there?_ again facebook has the feature of lists, how effectively you use them to filter your stream? Facebook doesn’t even have a native stream filter navigation pane, you have to search it in the search box until it appears and then follow them. I find it more confusing there as compared to Google+
Update 2:
Thank you for all your valuable comments, here is the inclusion of MySpace stats, as people are more curious of what myspace has left in the social media echo system. The decline of MySpace continues as they started the year 2011 with a mighty 45 Million unique visitors, they end up having just 21 Million unique visitors at the end of December 2011. With all the criticism apart, MySpace still has about 21 Million Unique visitors which still gives them hope to bring in some features that people are looking for in a social platform and bounce back in the social media echo system.
