Google Plus Stats
Allen: Google Plus passes 62 million users, adds 625K new per day. 400M by end of 2012; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusStats
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Gerrit Eicker
Keyword (Not Provided)
Google SSL leads to not provided keywords for search traffic: more than 10% already; http://eicker.at/KeywordNotProvided
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Gerrit Eicker
SEL: “Google’s new encrypted search for logged in users now appears to be blocking a much higher percentage of search terms than when it initially rolled out two weeks ago. In some cases, it might even be higher than the 10% or less figure that the company initially predicted might be impacted. … Google predicted that the change would impact 10% or less of searches… However, as of October 31, we have seen a very significant increase on the Not Provided figure here on Search Engine Land. It’s not just us, either. Looking at data from several websites across industries, we see a range of 7% to 14% of total organic keywords now being blocked. … The figure is even more dramatic, however, when you consider it as a percentage of Google-driven keywords. In other words, the 12.87% figure above means that for ALL keywords from ANY search engine to Search Engine Land, 12.87% of them were blocked. … The rollout was supposed to take place over the course of several weeks. The process is still happening, and it seems as if it was suddenly enabled for more users on October 31.”
LM: “It’s not just Google Analytics that will be denied this data. By ‘enhancing’ their default user experience for signed in users, Google will be redirecting signed in users to https://www.google.com, thus encrypting the search results page. In analytics, you’ll still be able to see that these signed in users came from the organic search results, but instead of being able to see the actual keywords that they used, you’ll see all that data aggregated under (Not Provided.) … So far [October 20th], since this change launched, LunaMetrics has seen 1% of our keywords clumped into (Not Provided.) A client with substantially larger organic search volume has already seen almost 2% of their organic keywords represented as Not Provided. We shall see how far-reaching these changes actually are in a few weeks when they’re rolled out completely.”
Naylor: “The online SEO community was up in arms after Google announced that signed-in users would get the encrypted search results as standard on google.com, meaning that all the referring keyword data would be lost in any analytic package. – Short term, this is unlikely to cause a too much of an upset and most people are saying they are only seeing 2-3% of all searches coming through with the (not provided) keywords.”
Mark8t: “As the change gets rolled out worldwide, you will start to see an increasing number of ‘Keyword Not Provided’, so you will need to become more creative. I would strongly recommend if you have not already to get a Google Webmaster Account, as Google notes: You ‘can also receive an aggregated list of the top 1,000 search queries that drove traffic to their site for each of the past 30 days through Google Webmaster Tools (GWT). This information helps webmasters keep more accurate statistics about their user traffic’. … In my view, although it may take more time, if you focus on content data, trends with keywords [as opposed to exact data] and other tools available, the impact will be somewhat lessened. The reality is, there is no point in crying over split milk, it’s done. Now it’s time to come up with creative solutions to keep moving forward.“
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Gerrit Eicker
LM: “Google SSL Search: Update on (not provided) keywords – Matt Cutts’ estimation that SSL search would only affect single-digit percentages of searchers is still holding true (in aggregate). But as you can see from the numbers above, the number of signed-in Google users that reach your site will vary greatly depending on your industry. The silver lining in this is at least we’re able to easily measure the effects of SSL search using Google Analytics and a couple of advanced segments.“
Gerrit Eicker
Tablets and News
The tablet revolution: 11% of U.S. adults own a tablet, 53% get news on their tablet every day; http://eicker.at/TabletsNews
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Gerrit Eicker
PEJ: “The Tablet Revolution – How people use tablets and what it means for the future of news – Eighteen months after the introduction of the iPad, 11% of U.S. adults now own a tablet computer of some kind. About half (53%) get news on their tablet every day, and they read long articles as well as get headlines. But a majority says they would not be willing to pay for news content on these devices, according to the most detailed study to date of tablet users and how they interact with this new technology. … The survey also finds that three-in-ten tablet news users (defined for this study as the 77% of all tablet users who get news at least weekly) say they now spend more time getting news than they did before they had their tablet. Just 4% say they spend less time while two-thirds (65%) spend about the same amount of time. … Whether people will pay for content, though, still appears to be a challenge, even on the tablet. Just 14% of these tablet news users have paid directly for news content on their tablets. Another 23%, though, have a subscription to a print newspaper or magazine that they say includes digital access. … The study also finds that these early users turn to the internet as their main source for news much more frequently than the public overall, and they have a strong preference for reading and listening to news rather than watching it-again much more than the population overall. Fully 71% of tablet users prefer reading and listening versus 45% of all U.S. adults. … Among the other major findings: The revenue potential for news on the tablet may be limited. Brand is important on the tablet. Substitution is already occurring to large degrees. Incidental news reading is prevalent on the tablet. Those who rely mainly on apps for news, 21% of all tablet news users, represent a kind of power news consumer. Word of mouth is a key component of tablet news sharing. When it comes to ownership, many see the tablet computer as more of a household device to share than as a strictly personal one.”
- Who Tablet Users Are
- Tablet News Users Have Strong News Habits on their Devices
- More Positive than Negative Assessments Overall
- News is Valued but Willingness to Pay is Low
- Apps vs. Browsers
- The Power User
- The Influence of Brand
- Sources for News
- Who Pays for News on the Tablet
- The Social component – Still Emerging
- Book Reading – Popular both in Print and on the Tablet
RWW: “Interestingly enough, 40% of respondents said they used the Web browser to access to news, compared to 21% who exclusively used apps. Many bigger publishers have made developing native apps a priority, believing that they will be easier to monetize than browser-based content. Indeed, some publications have seen an increase in readership after launching HTML5 Web apps than native applications could deliver. – How the native vs. Web app debate will shake out for brands generally is yet to be determined. For the time being, those that can afford should probably invest in building both. According to Pew’s research, 31% of tablet owners use both native and Web apps to consume news.”
pC: “Either way, there is still the overall problem: only 14 percent of tablet users surveyed have paid for news on their tablets. Companies that combine app or online subscriptions with print subscriptions have been able to attract another 23 percent of tablet users to their products, but there is obviously a long way to go.”
VB: “When it comes specifically to news consumption, the results are a mixed bag for media outlets. Yes, tablet owners love consuming news and they gobble it up on the browser and news applications. But, much like the hordes of regular Internet users, tablet owners don’t want to pay for the news they consume on their iPads and Android tablets. A disappointing 14 percent of tablet owners surveyed have paid for news specifically for the tablet. Among those who haven’t already put money down, 21 percent said they would consider paying $5 a month for news while 10% said they would pay $10 a month for news on the tablet.“
Gerrit Eicker
Social Media Mobile
Social networking on-the-go: U.S. mobile social media audience grows 37% in the past year; http://eicker.at/SocialMediaMobile
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Gerrit Eicker
ComScore: “[R]eleased results of a study on mobile social media usage based on data from its comScore MobiLens service, which showed that 72.2 million Americans accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device in August 2011, an increase of 37 percent in the past year. The study also provided new insights into how mobile users interact with social media, finding that more than half read a post from an organization, brand or event while on their mobile device. – ‘Social media is one of the most popular and fastest growing mobile activities, reaching nearly one third of all U.S. mobile users,’ said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president for mobile. ‘This behavior is even more prevalent among smartphone owners with three in five accessing social media each month, highlighting the importance of apps and the enhanced functionality of smartphones to social media usage on mobile devices.‘ … In August 2011, more than 72.2 million people accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device, an increase of 37 percent from the previous year. Nearly 40 million U.S. mobile users, more than half of the mobile social media audience, access these sites almost every day, demonstrating the importance of this activity to people’s daily routines. … 70 Percent of Mobile Social Networkers Posted a Status Update While on Their Mobile Device”
RWW: “While the mobile browser accounted for more visits, research shows that the social networking app audience has grown five times faster in the past year. While the mobile browsing social networking audience has grown 24% to 42.3 million users, the mobile social networking app audience shot up 126% to 42.3 million users in the past year. … People are increasingly checking social networks more from their mobile devices. More than half (52.9%) read posts from organizations/brands/events. One of three mobile social networkers snagged a coupon/offer/deal, and twenty-seven percent clicked on an ad while visiting a social networking site.”
SEL: “In the US roughly 40 million mobile users access social networks (broadly defined to include blogs) on their handsets on a daily basis, according to comScore. The large number of mobile-social users comes as no surprise. Facebook previously announced it had 350 million active mobile users globally. – Google also sees mobile as a strategic front for social networking growth. The new version of Android (‘Ice Cream Sandwich’) prominently features Google+.”
AF: “The consultancy found that 70 percent of those using Facebook on mobile devices – including smartphones and tablets – posted a status update from the gizmo on the go. – Facebook earlier this year disclosed that total mobile users worldwide exceeds 350 million. The U.S. portion of this at the end of August surpassed 57.3 million, according to comScore MobiLens.”
ZDNet: “So far, there’s already some solid footing for mobile advertisers to get involved here. Mobile users accessing social networks were found to be more likely to interact with brands on those sites than not, and 52.9 percent said they read posts from organizations/brands/events. Additionally, one in three in this group said they received some kind of coupon/offer/deal, with one in four clicking on an ad while conducting mobile social networking.“
Gerrit Eicker
Display Drives Search
SEL: How search conversions are driven by display impression frequency; http://eicker.at/DisplayDrivesSearch
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus: Failure to Launch?
Chitika: Google Plus growth spurt short lived after it went public. – What’s its USP? http://eicker.at/GooglePlusLaunch
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Gerrit Eicker
Chitika: “Mid-morning September 20th, Google+ officially entered public beta, drumming up the level of interest of the site far and wide across the web. Although able to boast 25 million unique visitors after only four weeks of operation, Google’s newest attempt at a social network saw its user base dwindle as shown by a recent article from Chitika Insights. … 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. – The data shows that, on the day of its public debut, Google+ traffic skyrocketed to peak levels. But, soon after, traffic fell by over 60% as it returned to its normal, underwhelming state. It would appear that although high levels of publicity were able to draw new traffic to Google+, few of them saw reason to stay. … The supply of users for social media sites is limited. To survive you must stand out and provide a service that others do not. – Features unique to your site must be just that – unique and difficult to duplicate – if they are not, the competitive advantage quickly disappears.”
RWW: “We at RWW can informally corroborate Chitika’s findings that interest in Google Plus is on the wane. Our monthly referrals from there are down 38% since their peak, while Facebook referrals are up 67% and Twitter referrals up 51% over the same period. – As we reported last week, the +1 button isn’t gaining much traction, either. Despite all the new features and responsiveness to user feedback, Google Plus just doesn’t seem to be catching on. There’s only so much time in a day for social networking, and this newcomer isn’t converting many users.”
Inquirer: “Google’s problem is not getting users in the first place, it seems, but rather keeping them after they have arrived. For now it appears that a lot of users are merely curious about Google+, but return to the tried and tested format of Facebook when the lustre fades. … While the jury is still out on which firm will win this battle, there’s no denying that the intense competition could make both social networks considerably better than they were before.”
RWW: “Many people say they don’t find [Google Plus] compelling though. We asked on Twitter and on Facebook and most people said that the value proposition was too unclear, that it wasn’t valuable enough to warrant the investment of time relative to the already heavy burden of Twitter and Facebook engagement. Google knows it needs to make changes to the service to increase its user retention. But you know who else has always struggled with new user retention? Twitter!”
UG: “While this is interesting, Chitika doesn’t provide much information about its data-gathering technique. Because it is an ad-network, one may suspect that it can see the referrer (Google+) to sites using its ad code. If that’s the case (and I’m not saying that it is), the method is not very accurate but one could argue that they should be able to pick up a (very) gross trend snapshot.The bottom-line is that Google+ saw a traffic spike during its public opening and that it subsequently faded, and I can believe that. This sound quite ‘normal’ to me, though. Secondly, second-hand data sampling on a 10-day period is hardly enough to tell if Google+ is a ‘failure to launch’ as Chitika puts it, so I think that there’s a bit of over-dramatization here. – It will take months (or years) and many evolution before we realize how well (or not) Google+ does/did. In the meantime, and as long as we don’t know how this data was measured, I would advise taking this with a grain of salt.”
Gerrit Eicker
Google Analytics: Real-time
Google Analytics goes real-time, finally: What’s happening on your site right now? http://eicker.at/GoogleAnalyticsRealTime
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “What’s happening on your site right now? – Currently, Google Analytics does a great job analyzing past performance. Today we’re very excited to bring real time data to Google Analytics with the launch of Google Analytics Real-Time: a set of new reports that show what’s happening on your site as it happens. … One way that I like to use these reports is to measure the immediate impact of social media. Whenever we put out a new blog post, we also send out a tweet. With Real-Time, I can see the immediate impact to my site traffic. … You’ll find the Real-Time reports only in the new version of Google Analytics. If you’re not already using the new version, you can start by clicking the ‘New Version’ link in the top right of Google Analytics. … We just turned the reports on for a number of you, and over the coming weeks, everyone will have access to Real-Time.”
Google: “We learned from some of our largest customers that they have some specific needs that the current version of Google Analytics can’t meet in their entirety. Today we’re addressing these needs by announcing a new option built for our largest customers: Google Analytics Premium. … Extra processing power – increased data collection, more custom variables and downloadable, unsampled reports – Advanced analysis – attribution modeling tools that allow you to test different models for assigning credit to conversions – Service and support – experts to guide customized installation, and dedicated account management on call – all backed by 24/7 support – Guarantees – service level agreements for data collection, processing and reporting”
RWW: “Google Analytics, the super dominant free web analytics platform, has to date offered analytics that were roughly 24 hours behind. The wait to stop waiting has come to an end and today the company announced that Google Analytics is now rolling out real-time reporting to its users. … My prediction: Google Analytics is going to become a much bigger part of the company and a much broader offering in the future than it is today. With the recent purchase of startup Postrank, Google will be able to offer real-time social media analytics soon. As the definition of the web expands into and beyond mobile, into and beyond other newly connected devices, the Google Analytics offering will expand allong with the world’s understanding of information. It will organize all that information and now it has laid the groundwork do it in real time and for a fee.”
TC: “Google Analytics, the immensely popular suite of tools that Google offers to help webmasters track their site traffic, is getting a big boost this week: the service has launched a real-time dashboard that updates with user events as they happen. – That’s a big deal, as it brings Google more in line with popular real-time analytics products like Chartbeat, which allows you to track things like how many people are currently on your site, and how much traffic each individual article has gotten in the last few minutes. … In addition to Real-Time, today the Analytics team has also announced a premium tier for enterprise companies who want more support (and datapoints tracked) than Google offers with its free service. Google says that for an unspecified price, companies will be able to get phone support, SLA guarantees, and increased data limits.”
VB: “For quite some time, Google Analytics has offered webmasters a free way to measure traffic of their sites 24 hours after the action occurs. But since real-time traffic startups like Chartbeat (a service we use) and Woopra came onto the scene, Google Analytics has looked slow in comparison. Thankfully, that’s remedied with these new stats tools, which include social media impact and campaign measurement.”
LM: “Real-Time reports do not include profile filtering. That extra processing step is currently bypassed in the interest of optimizing speed. So even if you’re looking inside a filtered profile, keep in mind that no data is being filtered out of the Real-Time reports. – Let me emphasize that this doesn’t mean that all your GA data is now real-time. Some of GA’s standard reports have deep functionality that also requires too much processing to be reported instantly. You have to look in the Real-Time reports for real-time data.”
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus Market Share
Hitwise: Google Plus market share at 0.084% (visits) – Allen: 50 millionen users soon; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusMarketShare
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Gerrit Eicker
Hitwise: “Google+ emerged as the third largest site in the Social Network and Forums category last Wednesday, a day after the site went from ‘invitation-only’ to ‘open access’ available to everyone. – Opening access created a massive spike in market share of visits for the site, with a 1269% growth from the week ending September 17th to the week of September 24th. The site also received nearly 15 million total US visits last week. … In just one week, Google+ went from ranking as 54th most visited site in our Social Networking and Forums category to 8th place. … In comparison to the online population, Google + continued to over-index for and win a high share of its visits from Mosaic USA 2011 Types which contain ‘Influencers’, ‘Early Adopters’ and the internet-savvy, like ‘Bohemian Groove’, ‘Gotham Blend’ and ‘Progressive Potpourri’; this indicates that ‘Early Adopters’ still account for a large share of Google+’s traffic.”
Allen: “Google+ Reaches 50 Million User Mark in About 88 Days – Until a few months ago, there was widespread skepticism in the tech and investor community about Google’s ability to ‘get social.’ … But yesterday (give or take a few days) Google+ likely crossed the 50 million user mark. … None of this is necessarily bad news for Facebook. Competition can make companies much better. Facebook has improved its functionality in the past few weeks by implementing changes inspired by Google+… Competition is great. Even though they have been fiercely competing for decades, Apple is worth $367 billion and Microsoft is worth $209 billion. … My model is going to break in the next couple of months as more and more of my rare surnames end up with more than 1,000 Google+ users, which is the maximum number of hits I am able to count for any given surname query. At that point, I have some ideas about how to work with a group of even more rare surnames, but my accuracy will probably be affected.”
Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are just getting started!”
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus Growth
Google Plus is joined by millions of new users since its opening, according to Paul Allen; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusGrowth
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Gerrit Eicker
Allen: “My team just completed a new round of counting Google+ users by surname. And I have updated my model. Our sampling of 400 uncommon surnames in the U.S. also reflects usage in many other countries, since the list of 400 includes names that are popular in India, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, and many other countries. … On September 9, our model showed 28.7 million users – This morning, our model shows 37.8 million users, with most of the growth coming in the last 2 days – By adding a fudge factor (see below) to account for private user profiles and for non-Roman surnames (both of which are totally overlooked by our surname counting model), my current estimate is 43.4 million users … My earlier model… which proved to be very accurate in the first 2-3 weeks, did not address either private profiles or non-Roman alphabet. According to FindPeopleOnPlus.com, there are substantial numbers of users from countries like Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, and many other countries, which my surname counting approach does not include. So I have decided to add a 5% privacy fudge factor and a 10% non-Roman alphabet fudge factor in my Google+ model. I’ll need to develop a way to actually calculate those percentages somehow, rather than just guess on them.”
SEL: “A Google+ post by Paul Allen, founder of ancestry.com and a self-proclaimed ‘unofficial Google+ statistician’, shows significant growth of Google’s social network since opening to the public. These growth rates were only first seen during the first few weeks of field testing when the user numbers were very low. In terms of the current growth spurt Allen states: ‘it is clear that Google+ is absolutely exploding – 30% growth in just 2 days and with a base of nearly 30 million members already.’ … So what does this mean? Google+ may be cementing themselves as a credible social network, but the mass exodus from Facebook just isn’t happening.”
eWeek: “Facebook now has 800 million users. Grumble as they might at the privacy and UI changes Facebook makes every few months, the users that comprise the vast social network stick around. – That’s user engagement, and by extension social advertising opportunities, Google can only aspire to at this stage.”
UG: “With Facebook’s recent introduction of the Timeline profile, the two networks are going to be quite different from one other – which is a good thing in my opinion. After all why would anybody want to use two of the same thing? Google is keeping it simple and minimalistic, while Facebook seems to be going in the opposite direction by letting users add even more about themselves on the network. Both services have their merits, so I guess we’ll continue to see users using Facebook and Google+ instead of completely migrating to one.“
Gerrit Eicker
Google Analytics: New Source Starts New Session
Google Analytics now starts a new session when any traffic source value for a user changes; http://eicker.at/GASession
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Beginning today [August 11, 2011], there will be a small change [sic!] in how sessions are calculated in Google Analytics. We think this update will lead to a clearer understanding of website interactions. We also want to explain how these changes might impact your reports. … Currently, Google Analytics ends a session when: More than 30 minutes have elapsed between pageviews for a single visitor. At the end of a day. When a visitor closes their browser. – If any of these events occur, then the next pageview from the visitor will start a new session. – In the new model, Google Analytics will end a session when: More than 30 minutes have elapsed between pageviews for a single visitor. At the end of a day. When any traffic source value for the user changes. Traffic source information includes: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_term, utm_content, utm_id, utm_campaign, and gelid. – As before, if any of these events occur, then the next pageview from the user will be the start of a new session.”
Kaushik: “A minor version of the butterfly effect occurred, one small change in a part of the system caused a few other smaller changes in other parts of the system. Some people freaked out. Others wondered what the fuss was all about. Still others wondered what they were going to eat for lunch. :) … Change is always hard to accept, especially when it comes with even the slightest impact on status quo. But if there has to be progress in life, then change is just the thing that puts us in a higher, more optimal orbit. It makes a better existence possible. – Go give the new data and reports a try. Thinking in a new way will require effort and brain power. But real happiness is worth it.”
Whitaker: “As with any model, it’s not so much about being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, but whether the model is useful. Does your model help you understand your customers a little bit better and make smarter decisions? If there is a better model then you should change to that one. – Ironically, the data causing higher visit numbers was there all along! It was just hidden due to the way Google Analytics used to count visits, pageviews, etc. Anyone remember 0 visits? … Finally, I am not a huge fan of visit-based metrics anyway. Who cares if your dear customers take 1 or 2 visits before placing an order? The main thing is that they accomplished their goals during each visit, i.e. browse in the first visit, have a cup of tea, then buy in the second visit.“
Gerrit Eicker 10:28 on 28. December 2011 Permalink |
Allen: “Google+ Growth Accelerating. Passes 62 million users. Adding 625,000 new users per day. Prediction: 400 million users by end of 2012. – Google+ is adding new users at a very rapid pace. It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 signups, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks. – Each week my team from elance runs hundreds of queries on various surnames which we have been tracking since July. We revised our model based on the actual user announcements made by Google on July 13th and Oct 13th. … If this rate of new signups (625k daily) continues then Google+ will reach 100 million users on Feb. 25th and 200 million users on August 3. They will finish 2012 with 293 million users. – I expect the growth to continue to accelerate however. Google can continue to integrate Google+ into its other products and word of mouth will continue to build. … Based on the accelerated growth I’m seeing and all the dials and levers Google can still utilize, and the developer ecosystem that will be developed, I predict that 2012 is going to be a breakout year for Google+ and that it will end next year with more than 400 million users.”
TC: “Google+ now has more than 62 million users, according to Paul Allen, Ancestry.com founder and unofficial traffic analyst for Google’s social network. That’s not 62 million active users, though – a point that everyone covering these numbers seems to have missed. It’s just the number of total users. And specifically, it’s the number of new surnames that Allen’s team has tracked being created on the service. – Because Google has aggressively integrated G+ into many other properties, including its top navigation bar and the OneBox, one would expect a certain baseline amount of sign-ups from among the hundreds of millions of people using other Google products. … But there’s support out there for Allen’s latest numbers, from someone trying to answer the usage question. Last week, comScore told us that G+ had grown to 67 million monthly unique visitors in November, up 2 million from October. That’s significantly more than the 50 million total users that Allen reported at the end of the month. … Allen’s big conclusion, based on the most recent growth increases, is that the service could reach 400 million users by the end of 2012. If that turns out to be the case, I’m sure active usage will also be increasing. But the question remains the same: how many G+ users stay active?”
VB: “For a social network that was invite-only until July 2011, those numbers are not bad. However, Google+ has a long way to go if it wants to catch up to Facebook’s 800 million users. … A Google spokesperson told VentureBeat that the company does not ‘have any additional metrics to provide based on Paul Allen’s estimates,’ but that more than 40 million people have signed up for the social network. That number comes from Google’s latest earnings call which took place on October 13. … In an attempt to garner more attention, Google+ rolled out a new ad campaign over the holiday season. The ads featured NBA annoucers and the Muppets to highlight Hangouts and other cool features of the social network. Perhaps the ads were enough to remind people that yes, Google+ does still exist and help it nab those 12 million extra users for December.”
TC: “For Google+, User Count Is A Journey Not A Race – That’s a good thing because Google+ missed the starting gun. And its ‘invite only’ launch strategy saw all its disconnect users flailing independently. But in the long run that might not matter much, because Google+ doesn’t need a critical mass or tons of engagement. It needs signups so it can get its identity layer under users of its other products. That way it can turn everyone’s searches, mapping, email, and more into fuel for its ad targeting engine. … With enough cajoling, users are registering even if their social network needs are already being met by Facebook and Twitter. – Google may never beat those services in terms of engagement with a content stream. … If it takes Google 4 years to start catching up to Facebook in terms of user count, so be it. The company has plenty of money to burn so it can take this long-term approach. What matters isn’t when, but if if it can eventually grow its registration base large enough for Google+ to produce ROI.“