Can Google+ attract enough users in a year to become more popular in the US than either Twitter or LinkedIn? A new Bloomberg-YouGov survey says yes.
The online survey of 1,003 US adults interviewed from July 29 to August 2, 2011 suggests Google+ is following in Facebook's footsteps.
"Google+ is tracing a path similar to Facebook's initial growth - building excitement in a core group of early adopters. For Facebook, it was college students. For Google+, that path is young, educated, single men who are heavy internet users," said Michael Nardis, head of YouGov Investment Products, in a statement.
Some 13 percent of adult Internet users in the US have already joined Google+, and another 9 percent plan to sign up within 12 months:
And 16 million US online adults plan to join Google+ in the next year, according to the Bloomberg-YouGov survey. If this holds true, Google+ is positioned to surpass Twitter, LinkedIn, and MySpace in US membership.
The social network's early adopters are a "highly engaged" bunch, mostly young, male, and educated. Forty-five percent of Google+ users say they read content at least once a day--only Facebook's 63-percent rate is higher.
Just under half (46 percent) of Google+ users post content--including status updates, links, and so on--at least once a week. That estimate is similar to Twitter's 42 percent.
Reality Check
So what does it all mean? While the early-adopter numbers are encouraging for Google, the high abandonment rate is cause for concern too. Once the novelty of Google+ wears off, will the young, tech-savvy males stick around, or will they return to Facebook and Twitter?
And will these early adopters successfully persuade their friends, family and colleagues--many of whom may already be suffering from some degree of social networking ennui--to pack up their contacts, photos, and bon mots and migrate to Google+?
As Search Engine Land's Greg Sterling points out, the Bloomberg-YouGov survey is, well, just a survey: "Very often attitudes expressed in surveys are quite different than behavior turns out to be," he writes. Quite true indeed.
Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci ) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com .