The recently launched social network by Google- Google Plus seems to have the right notes from day one. No doubt that there is a section that does not share the same enthusiasm for the social network as others but I personally like what I see so far (I am sure Arun will agree and he seems to be in love in Google Plus from day one). It is going to only get interesting as Google Plus opens up for businesses.
Like every other Google product, Google Plus is still not open to all and only phased rollouts are happening. That has not stopped the social network to notch up enviable numbers. Google Plus recently crossed 10 million users and the user base is only increasing by the day.
A new analytics site www.findpeopleonplus.com has come out with some interesting usage stats on Google+ based on their data collection of over 4.5 Mn profiles. Apart from other things, country representation is what is very interesting.
Indian ranks at number 2 in the number of Google Plus users so far with 142,339 users (18%)!
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Top 10 Countries Represented On Google+
|
Country |
Users |
| United States | 433,545 |
| India | 142,339 |
| Brazil | 41,605 |
| United Kingdom | 38,917 |
| Canada | 29,490 |
| Germany | 26,494 |
| France | 22,613* |
| China | 20,776 |
| Spain | 19,730 |
| Taiwan | 19,280 |
The country representation does not come across as a surprise really and pretty much resonates with the trend on another social networks. United States is the obvious leader and India, Brazil have always shown high usage for social networking. I am only wondering if Google+ has been rolling out in a phased manner based on regions as well. If that is indeed the case, it will interesting to see how the country representation changes when Google+ rolls out to everyone.
Male Population Dominates Google+
No surprises here too. One of the arguments against Google+ has been that mostly males with a technical bend of mind have flocked Google+ for now and they are the ones accounting for most activity. To a certain extent, I agree as the whole process of creating circles and selective sharing can be a little tricky for a lot of people.
Top 10 Occupations On Google+
| Occupation | Percentage |
| Engineer | 29% |
| Developer | 17% |
| Designer | 14% |
| Software Engineer | 12% |
| Web Developer | 5% |
| Writer | 5% |
| Software Developer | 5% |
| Programmer | 5% |
| Photographer | 4% |
| Teacher | 15% |
Techies are no doubt steering the initial growth of Google+. Early adoption for a lot of networks comes from people working in the technology industry and with India has the second most users on Google+ (We have lots of software engineers, don’t we
Top 10 Companies Represented By Google+ Users
| Company | No. of People |
| 9704 | |
| Self-Employed | 6949 |
| IBM | 5081 |
| Infosys | 3989 |
| Accenture | 3792 |
| Tata Consultancy Services | 3620 |
| Freelance | 2009 |
| Microsoft | 2856 |
| Apple | 2482 |
| Cognizant Technology Solutions | 2417 |
The numbers are not a lot to draw any meaningful insights but good to see Infosys, TCS with high numbers there. Gmail being a ubiquitous mailing system could be a huge reason why many would be driven to sign-up on the network.
Going by the representation of technology companies, I wondering if Google+ can become the Enterprise Social Network. Since a lot of employees would already be acquainted with Google+ with their personal accounts, the inertia to adopt it for collaboration at work place should come easy.
It is still early days and more statistics will emerge as Google+ usage increases with time. One thing is sure, the growth is stupendous even though it is currently dominated by technology folks for now.
What do you think is the future of Google Plus? Any chance it can dethrone Facebook?