Google+ is Growing Like Crazy. Report Coming Monday.
On Monday morning I plan to publish my latest research on how many Google+ users there are so far. My model is based on US Census Bureau data about how many people there are in the U.S. with each surname.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google+ has attracted enough celebrity sign-ups that ReadWriteWeb was already asking which of the accounts are real — yet Google itself had published no member count; the closest thing to an official number is Eric Schmidt's 'millions' remark carried by TechCrunch. Into that disclosure vacuum steps an analyst promising a Monday estimate built on an unusual method: matching Google+ member names against US Census Bureau surname-frequency data.
The method matters as much as the number it produces. With the platform staying quiet on adoption, whoever publishes a credible external model effectively sets the figure the rest of the press quotes.
First-order effects
- Monday's report hands journalists and watchers of the Facebook–Google contest their first quotable Google+ user count, displacing Schmidt's unquantified 'millions' as the reference point.
- Developers sizing up the network — the audience Momentus Media addressed with its Facebook-developer take — get an independent read on whether Google+ momentum justifies building for it.
Second-order effects
- Other measurement outfits face pressure to publish competing Google+ tallies, turning user growth into a recurring scoreboard story instead of a one-off reveal.
- The estimate puts Google in a bind: a roughly accurate model raises calls for official figures, while a badly wrong one discredits third-party counting altogether.
Third-order effects
- A standing pattern emerges around fast-growing platforms that withhold metrics: outsiders measure them anyway, and the company cedes control of its own growth narrative to whoever publishes first.
- If advertiser spending decisions depend on audience size, inferred estimates are too noisy to price against — pushing networks toward standardized, audited disclosure over time.
The trend: As consumer web platforms scale faster than they disclose, independent statistical estimates become the market's default measure of adoption.