Time spent by visitors on Google's social site stagnates

The amount of time US users spend on Google Inc’s new social network has grown more slowly in recent weeks, according to Experian Hitwise, indicating the service may struggle to make headway against Facebook Inc.

Users on average spent five minutes and 47 seconds on Google+ during the week ended August 27, up about four per cent from the previous week, according to Experian Hitwise, which tracks Internet statistics. Time spent on the site peaked in the week of July 16, at five minutes, 50 seconds, Hitwise said.

Google+ is the company’s latest effort to help it compete against Palo Alto, California-based Facebook, the world’s most popular social site. While the new service offers some good features for sharing content with friends, Facebook is an entrenched rival with more than 750 million users, said Charlene Li, an analyst with Altimeter Group in San Mateo, California.

“The people that you’d want to add are in many cases very happy on Facebook and they don’t want to have another social network,” Li said. US visits to Google+ fell 5.5 per cent to 1.16 million during the week ended August 27, after rising 2.6 per cent the previous week, according to Experian Hitwise. The company had gained 283 percent the week ended July 16. Still, Google hasn’t opened the service to everyone yet, so it’s too early to judge user numbers, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Inc.

LIMITED ACCESS
“Google says this is a limited field trial,” he said. “Early reactions from people who have used the service seem very, very positive. But we’re talking about a service that hasn’t been widely opened up, that most consumers can’t get access to.”

Google+, designed to help users better share information, debuted in a trial version on June 28 by invitation only. The service relies on a tool called Circles, which lets members communicate with limited sets of friends, rather than blasting everyone in their network.

The Mountain View, California-based company has been working since then to add more features. Earlier this month, Google+ rolled out a games service with developers such as Zynga Inc and Rovio Entertainment Oy, creator of the hit “Angry Birds.” Experian Hitwise’s research methods, which rely on visits to websites, don’t include mobile users or times when people access the service from the black notification bar running across the top of Google.com, the New York-based company said.

Google rose $1.62 to $540.70 on the Nasdaq Stock Market yesterday. The shares have fallen 9 percent this year.