Looks like Google+ might have some trouble ahead. Recent reports suggest that Google+’s novelty is wearing off as stats point to declining return users to Google+. Be honest – those of you who have signed up for Google+, how many of you still return to it regularly? We are betting not a lot. Compare that to Facebook users who generally tend to visit the site daily, if not multiple times a day.
Once they were enemies, but now Facebook and Twitter have teamed up with each other against Google. While the option to import your tweets into Facebook has been available for quite some time, Facebook will now natively allow users to tweet their Facebook status natively. No plugins needed.
There are some gotchas however. You need to obviously provide Facebook with your Twitter details, and your status updates have to be set to “public” in order to post to Twitter as well.
This is a interesting move by Facebook and Twitter, but I really hope they release some info on its uptake. Our opinion is that most people’s use of Facebook and Twitter vary greatly. Status updates sent on the network is not necessarily meant for the other network. For example, your techie/webby friends might be on Twitter, and your friends (and acquaintances) are on Facebook. This might be the reason for Google+’s recent decline in traffic. And no, the “Circles” feature does not help, it just increases complexity for the average user. (For some great insight into this read Simon‘s great post “Should I use Google+?“)
Right now we do not know when exactly the feature will go live, but expect it soon.