Google+ is losing market share, and has been every day in the last week. The search giant opened up its newest social network to the world almost three months ago amid much fanfare, yet struggled to maintain the buzz after controversy surrounding design, personal profiles, and network effects. Google+ was opened to the public on September 20th and yet, its web visits have declined 30% over the last seven days and, its share of traffic is 27% below its peak on July 20th. Ultimately, one must wonder whether Google’s latest attempt at a social network has already missed the gravy train of buzz that surrounded it in its first few weeks.

Over at Chitika Insights, we were interested in the impact of Google+ going public on the size and staying power of its user base. We examined the two weeks prior to its September 20th release over a sample of hundreds of millions of impressions from within our network traffic. After its public debut, the site saw brief uptick in its deteriorating traffic. Opening up Google+ will undoubtedly have a positive short-term effect on the social networks total use. The real question here, is given its long term downward trend, will be able to sustain this level of activity.

In our third installment of tracking Google+ since its birth (see here and here), the social network has seen many false dawns, especially during the second week of July and first week of September. Unfortunately, the general trend throughout beta testing has been downward, and Google+ has remained fundamentally the same throughout its trial period. Perhaps, Google expected the news leak in the last week would U-turn this trend. This does not seem the case and Google should be worried.

Has the Google+ story stalled on the ground? Or have we just reached a saturation point in social networks? Chime in with your opinion.


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