Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

January 21, 2012

This post on Google+ statistics is a billion* times better than any other post

Filed under: Authoring Topic Maps,Humor — Patrick Durusau @ 10:07 pm

This post on Google+ statistics is a billion* times better than any other post by Rocky Agrawal.

From the post:

In Thursday’s Google earnings call, CEO Larry Page told the world that the company’s fledgling social network, Google+ has reached 90 million registered users. He went on to say that, “Over 60 percent of Google+ users use Google products on a daily basis. Over 80 percent of Google+ users use Google products every week.”

I’m not impressed by the numbers, and I’m not impressed by what Page was trying to do with them.

Counting registered users instead of daily active users tells us nothing about the popularity of the service. Think of the millions of people who’ve registered for Google+ but never use it. Second, given the huge popularity of Google search, Gmail, and YouTube, it’s actually surprising that so few people who have registered for Google+ are using those more popular services on a daily basis — only 60 percent. After all, remember that a lot of Google+ users accidentally became Google+ users only because they were already attached to another Google service.

But what concerns me most is that Google is touting these meaningless statistics in the hopes that journalists will misunderstand them and report that Google+ is seeing rapid growth. The bottom line is, those 60 percents, 80 percents and 90 million registered users are just there to mask the fact that Google doesn’t want to tell us how many people are actually using Google+.

It’s intellectually dishonest. And as a public company, it raises questions of Google’s intent — the market is watching Google’s moves in social and needs to see traction. I expect better from Google.

Some journalists, to say nothing of the great mass of the unwashed, will be misled by Larry Page’s statements. Whether that was his intent or not. But many of them would have mis-understood his comments had they been delivered with the aid of anatomically correct dolls.

To illustrate another reporting approach to statements about usage by Larry Page, consider the Wall Street Journal coverage on the same topic:

The company has pushed into social media, launching Google+ as an alternative to Facebook’s popular website. (From: Google Shares Plunge As Earnings Report Raises Growth Concerns. Viewed January 21, 2012, 4:46 PM East Coast time.

That’s it, one sentence. And apparently investors were among those not misled by Page’s comments. If they cared at all about Page’s comments on usage of Google+.

Topic map authoring tip:

For business topic maps, remember your readers are interested in facts or statements of facts that can form the basis for investment decisions or fraud lawsuits following investments. Lies about extraneous or irrelevant matters need not be included.

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