BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

How Google+ Could End Up More Valuable than Facebook

This article is more than 10 years old.

(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

The internet was collectively surprised when Anthony Wing Kosner pointed out a report by UK market research firm Trendstream that said Google+ had passed YouTube and Twitter to become the #2 social platform on the web by monthly actives. It’s surprising, because Google+ looks pretty empty when you compare it to the noisy metropoli that are Twitter and Facebook. But as is becoming quickly apparent, Google+’s quiet network is far reaching and very valuable.

The reason people were so quick to dismiss Google+ is that we had a limited view of what a social network was, if that’s even the right phrase to use. We see Facebook, and Myspace before it, and figure that they are what a social network looks like: a place where people have profiles, send messages and post stuff.

But there is a difference, as Kosner points out, between “active” usage and “passive” usage. At first glance, Google+ users appear to be way less active then Facebook users. They post cat photos far less often. But in a different way, many Google+ users are more active than Facebook users will ever be. As long as you're signed into Google services or properties, you’re passively using Google+, and the site collects data either way. For instance, I rarely post things on my Facebook wall, but Google’s little search bar in the corner of my browser (Chrome) is unquestionably the central hub for my experience of the internet.

Everything that Facebook is chasing for revenue – its new and improved Graph Search, point-of-sale usage, meaningful interaction with brands – is something that Google already has. So while Facebook has to back-engineer parts of its highly successful free communications tool into something that can make more money, Google is taking something that makes money and expanding it.

It’s a different kind of social platform, not quite a social network. But it’s just as important in the way that it impacts how we experience the web, and it may be even more valuable to investors.

Related: