Commentary

Google+ Sweet Spot Is... Mobile?

Depending what metrics you look at, Google+ is either a fast-growing, promising newcomer to the social scene, or at best an also-ran. On one side, in January Google CEO Larry Page said Google+ had attracted 90 million registered users, up from 40 million in the first half of October -- and it may have doubled again since then. On the other side, comScore data (also from January) showed that PC users who visited Google+ spent an average of three minutes per month on the site from September to January.

But what about mobile users? It turns out Google+’s unexpected sweet spot may be in mobile social traffic, with growing strength in mobile content sharing, according to the latest “BoomBox Report” from Myxer, based on a survey of 1,022 Myxer mobile users (admittedly a rather self-selecting survey panel).

The Myxer survey found that 10% of respondents use Google+ to share content from their mobile phones including images, video, and music. That’s not a huge number, especially compared to 42% for Facebook and 37% for SMS, but it’s a lot more than you might expect based on the PC time spent figures cited above -- even more so when you consider that Twitter, a far more “established” social platform which would seem idea for mobile social activity, was used by just 2% of respondents for this kind of content sharing.  Google+ was also more popular than email, at 5%.

Indeed, it seems that Google+ may be more popular for mobile devise than it is for the Web: when Myxer mobile users were asked how they access their favorite, social networks, 46% said they use Google+ on mobile more than on the Web. That compares to 51% for Facebook and 24% for Twitter.

1 comment about "Google+ Sweet Spot Is... Mobile?".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Steve Schildwachter from Enterprise CMO, LLC, April 13, 2012 at 4:42 p.m.

    Could this finding stem from the fact that Android is the most common mobile operating system in the US?

    Other than that, I'm at a loss. I am definitely a member of the Less Than Three Minutes A Month On Google+ Club and I have never accessed it on any mobile device.

    http://twitter.com/SteveS1

Next story loading loading..