At least that's what the ongoing ratings by the American Customer
Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which find that Google+ has the most satisfied users (though, clearly, not the most users) [1].
❝ _As users continue to turn to social media for news and information, customer satisfaction is steady at an ACSI score of 73. Following the launch of new features and a redesign in January, Google+ posts a large gain, up 7% to 81. While Google+ has a smaller, more niche-like customer base than other social
media sites, its users are dedicated and highly satisfied._ ❞
It's absolutely true that Google has been continuing to quietly rework and improve G+ (albeit with wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth from some quarters in the process), and it remains, to my mind, a very solid platform for communities (its strength) or for individual contributors (such as myself) [2].
Google+ has been the butt of attacks since Google originally launched the service in 2011. Some folk (like myself) were deeply peeved at the unnecessary sacrifice of Google Reader to the new platform. Other folk, already invested in Facebook and/or Twitter disdained the tool's ability to dislodge those much larger, already established systems (correctly, if overzealously, so). Folk who have some sort of tribal dislike of Google badmouthed the platform reflexively (Google's efforts to make it the integration point for all its tools weren't handled well, but were, to my mind, a strength, and its disassembly from those services was an error).
And so people have been claiming Google+ a "ghost town" since it went online. Which, frankly, I found and continue to find pretty silly, more partisan attacks than considered judgments. I've found a robust and interesting set of people here, and continue to expand the folk I'm connected with to the point where, frankly, it's hard to keep up with the content. G+ is estimated to have over 100 active million users — that's a fraction of the size of Facebook or Twitter, but not a bad-sized community (I'm also not sure I would characterize it, as the WaPo does, as "very few").
Google has backed down from its attempt to supplant Facebook, either with a specific tool or specific integration model. But while I don't see drawing the "old friends and distant family and high school buddy" contingent from FB over to G+, those are also not the folk that I am as likely to want to converse with on a daily basis, certainly not to discuss politics or religion or pop culture [3].
Again, the rating here by ACSI is on satisfaction, not on numbers. But I think it should make both Google happy (and willing to continue investing in the product), and provide some comfort to G+ users. I plan on being on G+ for quite some time longer.
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[1] http://marketing.theacsi.org/acton/attachment/5132/f-0057/1/-/-/-/-/ACSI%20E-Business%20Report%202017.pdf
[2] One commenter notes that one reason for the higher satisfactoin is that the folk who don't like the service has left it, while many folk on FB are there because they feel trapped on the only platform where Grandma and Bob from Freshman Year visits. That makes a certain measure of sense, but I don't think it's the entire story by any means.
[3] I maintain a presence on FB, like so many others, because it's the only place that everyone else has a presence, but that's about the extent of my engagement there. I do a bit more natively on Twitter, as it's such an easy microblogging site, but the majority of my work is on G+, mirrored through various feeds to those other platforms and my WordPress blog.
Analysis | The most-loved social network among Americans isn’t the one you think
The very few people still using Google+ really love it
