Happy Birthday Google Plus!

Thursday 28 June 2012 marked the one year anniversary of Google+, the internet giant’s ‘non-network’ social network. As we well know, a year in the world of social media is a long time; just look at how Twitter and Facebook have grown with each passing year. So how well has Google+ done in their first year? Should they be celebrating or should they be hiding in a darkened corner with Orkut and Google Buzz (don’t remember them? That’s because they failed miserably!)?

The numbers

As a content writer that produces quite a lot of stuff related to social media, I am naturally a geek when it comes to numbers. I like to find facts such as Facebook passing the 900 million user mark or LinkedIn members carrying out nearly 4.2 billion professionally orientated searches on the platform in 2011 and being on course to surpass that in 2012. Finding out the stats are a good way of judging how successful a social media experiment has been. So how has Google+ faired in the numbers game? Well, very admirably actually…

Google has been very quick to emphasise how Google+ has “exceeded expectations”. They has shown this by revealing that Google+ currently has 250 million users signed up, and of these users, 150 million are active, with each user spending an average of 12 minutes on the service. Google also said that many of the active Google+ users access the site through the tablets and mobile devices. This is hardly surprising given Google’s recent success in this area.

When it launched in 2011, Google+ managed to exceed 50 million members in just 80 days. Bearing in mind that Facebook has been around for eight years and has 900 million members, it certainly seems that Google+ is heading in the right direction.

As we can see by the numbers, the one year anniversary is a joyous occasion, one that calls for a celebration! And in the Google mode of celebrating things, what better way to toast success than by launching a new update? As a treat to their loyal users, and a way to attract new users, Google has introduced Google+ Events.

Google+ Events

If you’ve ever tried to organise a party, you’ll know all too well how boring and time consuming it is writing and sending out email and text invitations. Well the good news, if you’re on Google Plus you will never have to do such a thing again. But not only does Google+ Events take care of the “before”, it also allows users to pre-plan the “during” and “after”. Google+ Events is the party planner that you always wanted but could never afford!

Before

You can create a personalised invitation from the numerous themes available and have it appear in Google Calendar. Once uploaded, any changes made by you or your guests will appear on the stream, this will keep everyone in the know about who is coming and who can’t make it. And if you really want to get fancy with the invitations, you can make and attach a personalised video.

During

When the personalised invitations have done their job and the party is in full swing, you can use Party Mode on your device to upload and share any photos and videos instantly. Of course, if there is alcohol at the party you may want to switch Party Mode off before a certain time before anything too embarrassing surfaces online!

After

After the party has finished, you are not only left to coordinate the clean-up operation, you are left with the online memorabilia of the event. You can relive the party through website content in the form of pictures and videos as well as guest comments in chronological order.

If this is where Google+ is at after one year, I can’t wait until the second anniversary, especially if it comes bearing gifts!