Facebook vs Google+

A lot of people are asking me why switch from Facebook to Google. Let me give you 3 reasons:
1. New members of Facebook can quickly and easily find their Gmail contacts, but it doesn’t work the other way because Facebook owns your data. -That is not right. Vote with your Login / time spent on Google+.
2. You can find new friends easier.  A lot of your old friends are now on Google+ also and by December we will be hitting network effect.
3. When you search Google more relevant (to you) data is returned.

200 Million Google Plus Users and counting

Today is the day Google+ gets 200 million users.  This is more users than LinkedIn and Twitter but still below Facebook. My methodology is quite simple. Search Google+ for the total number of users via this command site:plus.google.com -inurl:about then subtract the total number of users that haven't filled out their Google about page on Google+ via this command site:plus.google.com "has not filled * profile yet" -inurl:about 

223,000,000 - 23,900,000 = 200,000,000

This is a lot of users! I will try give that number some perspective.

• 200 million was the total population of the earth at the time of Jesus' birth. Now that would be one person I would add to my circles.
• 200 million is 60 kilometres of business cards stacked on top of each other.
• 200 million seconds is 6 years 4 months.

I have high hopes for this social network and I do hope that Google keeps it word in that they will do no harm. My methodology does need some work, but it is better than Facebook's method of just telling you how many email addresses have registered on Facebook (800 million). I know people who have 3 Facebook profiles.

We are long past the early adopters and are starting to see network effects in countries like Iceland. There seems to be a high adoption of Linux in Iceland - especially in government.

Google Plus is gaining 40 million new users per month

Is it time to dump Facebook and only use Google Plus? Personally, I have twice the followers on Google Plus than Facebook, but changing requires time and energy and are the benefits worth it. 2 months ago Google Plus had 186 million users now it has 266 million users (here), over 40 million new users per month or 21% monthly growth. Facebook has less than 1% per month growth.
I find it funny when people tell me "I can't leave Facebook because all my friends are there" when they don't have a Google Plus account. Maybe half of their friends are on Google plus and they don't even know who they are missing out on. I do find that with any social media it is a lot like reading the news -- if it is not in the feed you don't hear about it. I could go on about how much better the security is on Google Plus or how you still own your pictures / videos, but most people are convinced via fear so let me leave you with this last statement. If you don't join Google Plus now you will be left behind. :)