In the light of Facebook’s modifications and tweaks, Google+ has thrived growing by 30% in three days according to a Geekosystem report.
According to Paul Allen, who is calculating Google+’s growth using name statistics, the new social network added about 10 million more members, with the bulk of them joining the Google cause 48 hours after it opened to the public.
Allen’s research involves focussing on statistically rare names and using formula’s to estimate the total number of users. By his count, Google+ has 43 million users and although it’s a long way from Facebook’s 800 million, it is rising at a rapid pace.
Google’s jump coincides with the release of Facebook’s announced revamps, ranging from cosmetic enhancements to fundamental function changes. Things like Timeline, Open Graph applications and a new way of prioritising posts have been met with the fury of online bloggers.
“Facebook, you’re not near as smart as you think you are. Your algorithms for deciding what I want to see, who I want to talk to or what I think is important are 99.999% of the time the exact polar opposite of what I want,” wrote Facebook user Raymond J. Schlogel.
Nicole Denae Stolpa blogged “I do not want this. I don’t want Facebook deciding what’s important to me. I don’t care what your algorithms say, you will be WRONG.”
To be fair most Facebook updates are scorned by users at first, after all, there’s going to be casualties amongst an audience of 800 million. But in the past disgruntled social networkers would have to suck it up and return to unparalleled Facebook.
Now though, Google is offering a more simplistic social network that assimilates seamlessly with the existing plethora of Google services. Simply signing up to Google+ doesn’t mean that users will stick it out with the service, but it does give Facebook a competitor in a market that was once a monopoly.
