Are people really using Google+, the social network that Google launched last year?
During the company’s earnings presentation on Thursday CEO Larry Page said Google+ has more than 90 million registered users,. That more than doubles the 40 million that Google reported in October.
“We’re very excited about the growth we’ve had, and we’ve certainly seen a tremendous number of people added every day,” Page said. “That notion of identity is a deep part of what we’re doing.”
Google rolled out its social network last June. Since then, it has added tool bars and other buttons on its site to sharply promote the service. Google stirred up disputation last week when it began giving remarkable placement to Google+ pages in results delivered by its search engine.
On average, Google engineers have added a new feature related to Google+ every day since its launch, Page said.
It took Facebook about four years to reach 90 million users, according to Facebook’s public statements. After starting as a students-only service, Facebook now has 800 million people checking their accounts at least once a month, about 10 times that of Google+.
Analysts said that Google+ was launched specially to confront Facebook’s growing control on the Web. Google and Facebook generally do not join forces. Another competitor Twitter, complained that the latest changes to Google search favor Google+ and hurt Twitter’s ranking on search engine results pages.
“We provide a lot of third-party data in search, and we would love to have more,” Larry Page said in response to an analyst’s question. “Generally, companies have been walling that data off.”
Larry Page further said that People who register for Google+ tend to be dedicated users of Google’s search engine, documents services and e-mail service. More than 60% of them use Google products every day and 80% visit a Google site at least once a week, Page said.
Page, who posted his comments on his Google+ page, did not say how often or what percentage of users specifically visit its social networking service. “Engagement on Google Plus is also growing tremendously,” Page said. A Google spokesman declined to comment.
