Google+ braces to bring more users under its fold in India

Google+, which has around three million Indian users, is now bracing to attract the 35 million Facebook users, in addition to bringing users from its Gmail and YouTube services on to its networking site. This, though social media players here share a mixed opinion about its future.

This time, Google may be lucky with Google +, says Mahesh Murthy, founder of digital media agency, Pinstorm. “Putting my Nostradamus hat on, I see Google+ accounting for around 20 million users by the third quarter of 2012, and touching the 50-million user mark by the third quarter of 2014. Even at these numbers, it may still be second to Facebook in India, though a large and very significant second in a market where Facebook is the undisputed leader right now.”. Indian users, according to industry estimates, account for about 18 per cent of all Google+ users, second only to the US.

However, Rajiv Dingra, founder of WatBlog, says, “Just as Twitter sticks out as an influential platform where you engage with thought leaders, Facebook is a community platform to talk to all. But Google+ is yet to become something to someone...The site is fast becoming a collaborative platform where you collaborate with people and share ideas or news. Facebook, on the other hand, carries on a very personal level of interactions among users.”

Adhvith Dhuddu, founder and chief executive, social media management firm AliveNow, believes Google+ has the means to integrate all its products from maps to pictures and videos to documents on the same page. The turning point for the social networking site would arrive when it opens itself to business users. “Google+ is expected to launch a Facebook-for-business-like product in the coming months, and that may help the site to drive new users who want to engage with Google's platform,” he says. However, both Dhuddu and Dingra agree amassing three million users in three months is an exceptional feat for Google+. “I can see Google+ touching 15 million users from India in a year's time, but Facebook would grow stronger,” says Dhuddu.

A report by the Internet & Mobile Association of India pegs India's active internet subscribers at around 80 million. Murthy's projection may not seem daunting when one considers how Google's mail platform, Gmail, commands 62 per cent penetration in India, while its video-sharing site, YouTube, accounts for a whopping 23 million users (Comscore data). Murthy adds while Google+ does a really good job at allowing narrowly-directed communication, that is, with just a few people or just a particular circle of friends, “it does a bad job at being a broadcaster or having mass social functionalities like Facebook...I believe Google would need to build more mass social connectors in Google+, like finding birthdays, alumni and common friends to effectively match and compete with Facebook,” he says.

For Hareesh Tibrewala, joint chief executive of Social Wavelength, Google's concept of circles on Google+ is perhaps the single most important feature. “However, over the last few weeks, Facebook has been rolling out new features and would close the gap between Google+ and Facebook, in terms of features.” He says in the past few weeks, the rate of customer acquisition for Google+ had slowed considerably. With its eyes set on securing its share of the social networking crowd, the internet giant announced around 100 feature improvements to Google+, including the ability to search the web from within the service.