Engage! Why Google Is Talking Up Google Plus Engagement, But Not Other Metrics

MacManus can’t get Google’s Gundotra to share daily usage numbers on Google+:

Richard MacManus via ReadWriteWeb

At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last week, Google held a special press roundtable with Google co-founder Sergey Brin and SVP of Engineering for Google Plus Vic Gundotra. As he had been earlier in the day, Gundotra was relentlessly upbeat about the performance of Google Plus. Yet there continues to be a frustrating lack of specifics from Google about user metrics on its new star product.

Specifically, I asked Gundotra how many of the over 40 million users reportedly on Google Plus are active, daily users? “It’s a number we’re very happy with,” was the best answer that I got. Rather than focus on hard user metrics, Gundotra instead steered the conversation to the engagement levels of Google Plus users and Google’s plan to integrate Google Plus across all its products.

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Vic Gundotra is exceptionally good at steering the conversation to the things he wants to discuss. And yes, I buy into the idea that Google Plus will be the key part of Google’s plan to integrate its services.

But I am still not convinced that Google Plus has been as successful as the 40 million user number purports it to be. Google won’t give any numbers to assuage my concerns. But I look at my own Google Plus profile. It has over 55,000 followers (thanks in large part to my being on its Suggested User List), yet hardly any of my non-tech friends are on there. A couple of my family members tried it out, but neither stuck around. Maybe they will “re-engage” later, but right now I am just not seeing evidence of an active daily user base - beyond of course the tech and media community. It seems to me that most of my 55,000 followers, for example, are not actually using the product on a daily basis.