The vast majority of Google+’s “growth” came from users of other Google apps who were pushed to convert their Google account to G+ but had no interest in using it otherwise, and they made the new Google account signup process push you into G+ even if you were just there for Gmail, YouTube, etc. They also counted a lot of activity in the apps people actually used as G+ interactions and refused to provide breakdowns for those stats, which suggests true interactions were really low.
Threads is not perfect but everyone on there had at least some genuine interest and anecdotally people see far more activity than G+ ever managed. I hear a lot of comments that both Threads and Mastodon tend to have more real interactions, too, and that matches my experience where lower follower counts still translate into more activity.
The difference is this is tightly coupled with Instagram which is one of the most active networks already and they can easily cross pollinate the two for a long time and keep sucking up people who get fed up with Twitter.
Yeah there was a certain set of news events that happened over the past couple months that turned X into a cesspool of people intentionally baiting each other and refusing to listen or show humanity.
Anecdotally Twitter traffic went _way_ down between 12/14 to 1/14. Seemed like a lot of people went on holiday vacation and didn't feel the need to come back.
In my social sphere, most just used it as a test run, but then Twitter became a centre of rage, violence, and politics that the more apolitical ones are spending more time on Threads.
In my experience it’s not quite the opposite but quite different.
Twitter is fine for apolitical people. They don’t follow the politics. And then Twitter is fine for people of a certain political leaning.
Everything else in this space is for people who are political + left enough to want to leave Twitter because they follow enough political things to be annoyed at all.
> Does downloads really tell us much or is it just a vanity metric?
It doesn't.
Which is why they won't reveal the new daily active users (DAUs) on Threads which is one of the most important metrics on user usage and tells us if they are still sticking to using the platform. The last time I checked it was less than 25M DAUs.
Not even the author is using their Threads account in the article as a contact and is still posting more on X than Threads.
acdha|2 years ago
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/01/google-doubles-plus-...
Anecdotally, I move in nerdy circles but maybe 5% of the people I know used G+ at all, ever.
If Threads’ reported daily active users count is accurate in the 30M range, it’s already close to Google+ 40M _monthly_ active users near its peak:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/technology/the-plus-in-go...
Threads is not perfect but everyone on there had at least some genuine interest and anecdotally people see far more activity than G+ ever managed. I hear a lot of comments that both Threads and Mastodon tend to have more real interactions, too, and that matches my experience where lower follower counts still translate into more activity.
tracerbulletx|2 years ago
bamboozled|2 years ago
refulgentis|2 years ago
Anecdotally Twitter traffic went _way_ down between 12/14 to 1/14. Seemed like a lot of people went on holiday vacation and didn't feel the need to come back.
MattGaiser|2 years ago
samtheprogram|2 years ago
Twitter is fine for apolitical people. They don’t follow the politics. And then Twitter is fine for people of a certain political leaning.
Everything else in this space is for people who are political + left enough to want to leave Twitter because they follow enough political things to be annoyed at all.
brightball|2 years ago
rvz|2 years ago
It doesn't.
Which is why they won't reveal the new daily active users (DAUs) on Threads which is one of the most important metrics on user usage and tells us if they are still sticking to using the platform. The last time I checked it was less than 25M DAUs.
Not even the author is using their Threads account in the article as a contact and is still posting more on X than Threads.
hn1986|2 years ago
hn1986|2 years ago
I mainly like it for some of the cool communities active there (NBA and photography). and news is pretty good too