Google+ Users Are Nearly All Male
By Jolie O'Dell 2011-07-14 22:26:42 UTC
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Here's an interesting tidbit from the Google+ stats trackers: Three quarters (or more) of Google+ users are male.
SocialStatistics, a third-party site that gathers data from select profiles, pegs the percentage of male users at 86.8%, while FindPeopleOnPlus, which curates information from about a million users, says men constitute 73.7% of Google+.
FindPeopleOnPlus also discovered that 95% of the Google+ users who say they are "looking for love" on the site are male. Some 25,000 users in their sample identify themselves as single, versus 19,000 married and 12,000 in a relationship. The vast majority of the million users sampled don't say what they are.
With around 60% of users identifying themselves as web developers or software engineers, that paints a fairly stereotypical picture of Google+'s userbase: nerdy guys who have deep understandings of technology and who don't mind killing some time setting up Circles of friends.
It's true that the early adopters of any new technology are usually male. But Google+ will have to appeal to a mainstream audience if it's to reach mass adoption anytime soon. Consider the gender breakdown for Google+'s biggest competitor, Facebook. The social network is close to a 50-50 split between men and women. And some of Facebook's most addicted, most enthusiastic users are women.
Meanwhile, Google is about to stop requiring users to input their gender — meaning we may get less accurate stats as time progresses.
Screenshots: Inside Google+
Introducing Google+
Google+ Logo
This is the Google+ logo.
Google+ Icons
The Google+ icons. Starting top left and circling to the right: Circles, Hangouts, Home, Sparks, Profile, Photos.
New Google+ Navigation Bar
All Google sites will sport the new Google+ navigation bar. It includes notifications, profile information and content sharing options.
This is the Google+ Stream, where users share content and see what their friends are sharing. It is similar to the Facebook News Feed.
Google+ Circles is Google's version of the Facebook friend list or the Twitter List. Users can select multiple friends and drag-and-drop them into groups. This makes it easier to send stuff to friends, family or the entire world.
Google+ Circles Editor
This is the Google+ Circles editor in action. Google has created unique animations for adding and removing friends through HTML5.
Google+ Sparks
Google+ Sparks is Google's content recommendation and discovery engine. Users can search different topics and find relevant articles, videos and photos. Users can then share that content with their friends.
Google+ has a unique video chat feature called Hangouts, which lets you chat with up to 10 people at the ame time.
Google+ Photos
Google+ allows you to upload and share photos with your friends. It includes photo tagging and a simple browser-based image editor.
Google+ Profiles are like most profile pages -- it includes basic information about the user like interests, occupation and profile photos.
Topics: Google, sausagefest, Social Media, Web Apps