Comments on: Can babies teach us anything about Google Plus?

By: Bobbie Johnson

Bobbie Johnson — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:00:53 +0000

Thanks all. I’m sure you all read the caveats about why this wasn’t much more than an indicator (or else you wouldn’t have wasted time upbraiding me for precisely the thing I’d said, right?).

Perhaps worth remembering that right now, it’s impossible for me (and most people, I’d imagine) to share the same information with the same people across all networks because Google+ simply isn’t available to everyone. Until that’s possible, there are always going to be problems conducting any proper analysis of this.

By: perkins

perkins — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 10:48:11 +0000

here is what can be done

If you had shared the news with the exact same people across networks, then these anecdotal results would be worth more, but there are still so many factors at play that it’s difficult to come up with a reliable conclusion.

By: Emiel

Emiel — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:16:07 +0000

Another conclusion you should draw is that the size of the list does matter, but the quality/responsiveness of the list (or circle) is key.

An exact match between the people in your list and what they expect to see in your posts is vital.

By: andrei

andrei — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:06:21 +0000

amit why, why are you a hater? he divided the number of people with the number of likes so it doesn;t matter how many there are, proportions are the same.

“confuse NEW readers”.. why amit, why?

By: Aswath Rao

Aswath Rao — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:15:22 +0000

Given the current make up of your social graph, you could normalize Facebook numbers the following way: of the 543 friends in FB, how many would belong to “friends and family” circle and how many from that responded. I think that would be rough comparison. No?

By: amit

amit — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:05:11 +0000

This is the dummiest experiment and explanation. I don’t know how it got published. Why don’t you create a group in Facebook and Google with equal number of your friends and then post sth to only these groups. Then compare.

These kind of illogical experiments just confuse the new readers.

By: Bobbie Johnson

Bobbie Johnson — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:19:14 +0000

Thanks Robert. And I think you’re right: I’d imagine that the interaction will end up drifting down towards the same ratios as Facebook pretty quickly once the system is opened up.

By: Bobbie Johnson

Bobbie Johnson — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:18:24 +0000

Well, I make that point: I’m not saying this is fair, but I had to work with what I’d got. Right now, most of my contacts on G+ right now are business acquaintances, not personal friends, so I had to work with what I’d got. And if all of the 500+ people who I’m friends with on Facebook were on G+ — and I suspect most of them will be in the end — then I would have shared it with most of them, too.

By: Robert Keahey

Robert Keahey — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:13:37 +0000

I would suggest that the “higher” numbers for Google+ are due to the newness factor. Kind of like when you buy a new car or gadget. You want to turn all the knobs and push all the buttons to see what they do. At least that’s been my experience with Google+. I’ve looked at a lot of things that on a day-to-day basis I would probably assign a lower priority. It will be interesting to see the results of your experiment a year from now.

Congratulations on your pending new addition.

Robert

By: Mark Raymond

Mark Raymond — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:07:55 +0000

This isn’t a fair test. On one network you’re sharing with close family and friends; on another you’ve expanded your circle beyond that. And given that it’s likely that people closer to you are going to care about your personal news, it makes sense that interactions per pop will be lower.