According to metrics collected by the Find People On Plus website, Google+’s main demographic is comprised of male San Francisco-based engineers, at least according to the profile data they’ve submitted.
According to these figures, roughly 73.7% of all Google+ users are male, 7.85% live in San Francisco and as many as 24.56% have listed their occupation as engineers. Judging by these metrics, Google+ could be seen as an Internet-only Silicon Valley, where engineers share pictures of their custom-made circuit boards and desperately “look for love”, since according to these figures, 94% of those who are “looking” for love are men and only 5% of those are women, based on the profile data they’ve submitted.
The immediate reaction by many was of surprise, since on Facebook, currently the most prominent social network in the world, there’s an even ratio of men and women. In addition, the site is filled with teenagers and non-savvy users, therefore the proportion of engineers using the site should be fairly lower than 24%. While there might have been some narcissism on the part of those who have filled out their profiles, since anyone can claim to be an engineer on a social network after all, there must be more to the story. The underlying reason might be the fact that Google+ is currently an invite-only service, therefore only those with a reasonable amount of tech-savvy friends are currently able to land their feet on the site: this might explain why as many as 24% of the site’s users are engineers. The same reason could be the reason behind the fact that almost 10% of Google+’s users are based in San Francisco, a city where technology has a much broader reach due to its culture and heritage.
Once Google decides to broaden the site’s usage by scrapping the invite system and letting anyone use the service, Google+’s usage proportions might start to shift, with more teenagers joining the experience. Until then, I’m afraid that most of the site’s users will be engineers. Though the social network at the moment is at an invite-only status, still during this time period it has managed to hit the 10 million active users mark, as confirmed by Google itself.
Google+ is Google’s new social networking service marketed as a promoter of natural social interactions. The new website includes features such as +Circles, allowing for effortless granular management of friends and the content they’re able to access, as well as +Hangouts, which allows for effortless video conversations within the browser.
(via Gizmodo, Find People On Plus)
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