Google+. Image Credit: Google.
While Google+ does that have the user numbers to rival Facebook yet, it could potentially catch up to the social media giant, as analysts expect Google+ to reach 400 million users by the end of this year, just half of the users of Facebook. It is not bad for a system that is so new to the game.
The site has had a massive increase in numbers and has doubled its traffic in the month of December. This means that there were more than 49 million US users and a increase of 55% in that month. The site has also show grown eight weeks out of nine.
These numbers are not official as Google+ has declined to publicize the actual number but social media analysts have found that the a quarter of the site’s users have only signed up in the last month.
The advantages of Google+ over Facebook are numberous. The relative ease of adding people to your network and more tools to allow for different privacy settings, categories and friend circles, direct connections to websites, more interactions with followers, and the ability to use “Hangouts” as chats with up to ten people. It also a feature called “Sparks,” which is an online sharing engine that allows people within our network to easily find common content. There are location-based apps, direct uploads and an integrated login with the very popular free email service Gmail.
The biggest hurdle for Google+ is to reach the critical mass where there are enough users to connect a social networking community.