What Does Google+ Want to Be When It Grows Up?
TechNewsWorld
Google+ is growing fast, according to figures from ComScore. It also looks like it's trying to develop a social gaming angle, which could put it in even more direct competition with social networking king Facebook. But third-party games and apps have been a sore spot for Facebook when it comes to privacy. What path will Google+ take as it matures?
Membership in Google+, which was launched only about three weeks ago, is soaring.
Calculations by Comscore indicate the service had 20 million visitors in just 21 days.Meanwhile, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is reported to be preparing to add a social gaming feature to the Google+ service in order to attract even more subscribers and pose a stronger challenge to its primary target, Facebook.
However, the addition of social gaming may bring with it more problems about user privacy.
Facebook has been criticized for sharing subscriber information with makers of social gaming apps; could Google, which hasn't exactly proved to be a bastion of privacy itself, also be plagued by this?
Fly, Google+, Fly
Comscore tracked unique visitors to Google+ from June 29 to July 19, and it found that the service had racked up about 20 million visitors worldwide.To drive home the point of the service's rapid growth, the July 19 figure was 82 percent higher than that of the previous week and 561 percent more than that of two weeks previously.
The number of subscribers in the United States exceeded 5 million by July 19 -- up 81 percent from the previous week and 723 percent from two weeks before.
Most importantly, Comscore was tracking visitors, which are different from users in that visitors may not sign up for the service. Also, Comscore was measuring behavior from people who visited the Google+ website pages, which means those who came in through the Google+ bar at the top of most Google pages weren't counted.
With a built-in visitor base of more than 1 billion worldwide, Google has the potential to convert a high number of users to Google+, Comscore suggested.
Gaming at Google
Several moves by Google indicate it might be moving into the social gaming market.In April, Google advertised a job for a product manager of games.
Google recruited gaming industry veteran Mark DeLoura, whose history included stints at Ubisoft and Nintendo, as developer advocate back in 2010. However, DeLoura left after about four months.
In 2010, Google also acquired Slide, which developed social games. Further, it's reported to have sunk about US$100 million in Zynga and backed gaming firms such as Ngmoco() andSCVNGR.
"Today's technologies, especially mobile gadgets and social platforms, enable a level of connectivity and engagement that wasn't possible a few years ago," Jennifer Jacobson, director of social media
at Retrevo, told TechNewsWorld."It's not surprising that companies like Google are getting into the online social gaming market," she added.
"Google+ is an ongoing project and this is just the beginning," Google spokesperson Katie Watson told TechNewsWorld. "We plan to add a lot of features and functionality to Google+ over time. We're just excited to get started."
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