Commentary

Most Google+ Users Are (Still) Men

The proportions may have evened up somewhat since the early days immediately following its launch, but Google+ is still a mostly male milieu, according to calculations by Website-Monitoring.com, a service of Siteimpulse, based on figures from the Google blog, SocialBakers.com, and elsewhere.

Overall the Google+ user base is 67% male and 32% female, with 1% “other,” which can of course mean any number of things. The first two figures suggest that despite the surge in user numbers, there is still a pronounced skew towards tech types, and thus Y chromosomes, in the Google+ user profile. Indeed, software engineers represent a disproportionate 2.65% of the total user base, according to the same analysis (although that’s far behind students, at 20%).  

While still skewing significantly male, these figures are down quite a bit from the early days of Google+: in July of last year data from Google Analytics suggested Google+ users were 88% male, making it a veritable sausage fest.

Looking to the future, Website-Monitoring.com echoed earlier predictions that Google+ could have up to 400 million users by the end of this year; this is in line with a similar forecast made by Ancestry.com’s Paul Allen a few months ago. In late January Google CEO Larry Page said Google+ had 90 million users, up from 40 million in mid-October (also per Google) and 67 million in November (per comScore).

Back to the real issue behind those skewed gender ratios: as I asked before, is Google+ any good for dating? At two-thirds male, it might look pretty promising for female users who are on the market, but I’m also reminded of a single female friend’s assessment of the dating environment in male-heavy Silicon Valley: “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”

1 comment about "Most Google+ Users Are (Still) Men".
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  1. Ted Rubin from The Rubin Organization / Return on Relationship, February 17, 2012 at 4:20 p.m.

    Google+ is not a consumers platform. It is a professional's platform and community, yes... a good part tech, and that is why is is skewing to majority men. In addition, because it is mostly men, and not women, the interaction is mostly of the male genre... meaning, once again, of little value to brands in respect to building relationships, brand awareness, or amplifying a message. On the other hand, the tools offered by Google+ are being used a great deal and have a lot of value.

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