The gulf between usage on G+ and Facebook has always been large, but comScore’s numbers show a downward trend for Google’s fledgling social network. Users spent 4.8 minutes on the network in December and 5.1 minutes in November, the report said.
The usage figures come after Google has trotted out some impressive stats outlining Google+’s growth. In a call with analysts last month, Google CEO Larry Page said Google+ had 90 million users compared to 40 million in October.
Reps from Google could not be reached for comment on the report. In the past, Google has taken issue with third-party reports about Google+, noting that they don’t track users who access the site remotely, among other factors. (ComScore doesn’t include mobile users in its data, though it plans to soon.)
Google is putting a huge amount of emphasis on Google+. Last April, Page told employees that 25% of their annual bonuses would be tied to the company’s social strategy that year, which primarily involved the yet-to-be-announced Plus. The company also integrated Google+ results into searches in January, a program it calls “Google Plus Your World.”
Despite the latest report, though, there’s some encouraging news for Google: Website-Monitoring crunched the numbers this month and found that Google+ is getting less male dominated and is catching on big in India, where 13.69% of Plussers now originate.
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Yahoo to Facebook: Pay Up for Your Patents
If Yahoo aggressively pursues a strategy of asserting its intellectual-property rights, it could lead to a new phase of patent wars, this one involving some of the biggest names in social networking.
In a statement first reported by The New York Times, Yahoo told Mashable it “has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property.”
“We have invested substantial resources into these innovations,” the statement continued. “We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights.”
Yahoo also said other “web and technology companies” had licensed its technology, but it refused to name any of them when asked.
The patents Yahoo holds involve many different technologies for helping websites deal with data and multiple users. One such patent even has to do with “Centralized registration for distributed social content services.”
That patent appears to apply to basic functionality to any social network, including entering personal information and selecting which parts of it are visible to others.
A spokesperson for Facebook told the Times, “Yahoo contacted us the same time they called The New York Times and so we haven’t had the opportunity to fully evaluate their claims.”
Yahoo’s IP threat is an ominous sign that the world of web platforms could be in for an era of legal infighting similar to what has happened around phones and mobile technology in recent years. In addition to Yahoo,Amazon and Microsoft hold many patents that deal with the modern web.
Amazon, for example, holds a patent on a “social networking system capable of notifying users of profile updates made by their contacts,” which also sounds like basic Facebook functionality.
The move also helps define the new Yahoo. Over the past several months, Yahoo fired its CEO, hired a new one, and saw one of its co-founders and its chairman leave for good.
From the appointment of current CEO and former PayPal guru Scottt Thompson, Yahoo appears to want to make a name for itself as a tech company again.
Does starting a patent war with Facebook serve that strategy? It’s hard to say, though it’s a bold if odd choice as the first order of business for the “new Yahoo.”
Is Yahoo right that Facebook is infringing on its IP and should pay up? Or is this just a dinosaur Internet company’s last roar? Sound off in the comments.
BONUS: How Yahoo’s New CEO Can Make the Company Relevant Again
Yahoo partnered with Microsoft to have Bing power its search engine a couple of years ago, part of a deal that let Yahoo run advertising for both. While the arrangement may make sense from a financial standpoint, it robs Yahoo of direct control over one of its primary products, and strengthen's Bing's brand more than Yahoo's. Sure, most people familiar with tech were using Google or Bing anyway, but the move basically told them to never come back.
Those tech-savvy people are influencers, and Yahoo needs to win them back if it's ever going to grow again. Ending its soul-leasing deal with Microsoft would free Yahoo up to innovate in one area most associated with the brand. Yes, Google is the 400-megaton gorilla in the room, but ceding the search-engine war when you're primary business is advertising is like saying you'll fight, but you're leaving the heavy weapons at home.
Yahoo has a problem with its products: It's always chasing its competition. Typically, an innovator or competitor will launch a service, then Yahoo will follow much later with a similar product that's inferior. And its core services (search, email) were quickly outclassed by more nimble and focused players. Think Flipboard vs. Livestand, Gmail vs. Yahoo Mail and Digg vs. Yahoo Buzz. Over the past six or seven years, Yahoo has been the ultimate me-too digital brand.
Even though some of those services have improved (notably Mail), a bunch of disparate services does not a platform make. This is something Facebook, Amazon and Google understand, but Yahoo doesn't. Yahoo has a bunch of people using its services, but they're not connected in any meaningful way. Yahoo needs to find its focus going forward -- maybe it's the multitude of niche and hyper-local Groups that are still very popular -- and start uniting its suite of products around that. And it needs some good ones.
When AOL bought The Huffington Post, it was a questionable decision, but it was a strong move forward in the company's plan to rechristen itself as a media company. It also got people talking about the brand again. Yahoo needs an equivalent action to really assert itself either as an innovator or serious player in the media business. Acquiring the right startup or small-but-growing company (I'm looking at you, Tumblr) could give Yahoo direction, attention and something it's in short supply of -- cool.
As much as it may have wanted to at one point, Yahoo can't compete in every digital arena. Part of Thompson's challenge will be to give the aging brand some focus. To do that he should get out of some areas (not search, though) and declare peace with competitors. That will put the company in a position to make deals with other big players and build powerful alliances.
It's already started doing this. Yahoo killed its me-too deals service after a few short months last year, so now might be a good time a partnership with Groupon, which could use the help after that firm'sshaky IPO. Yahoo made a strategic deal with Facebook in 2010, and it might be worth expanding that. LinkedIn is another company, at least demographic-wise, that might be a good match. Mobile is clearly an area that Yahoo wants to grow in, and there are some key players (Microsoft, RIM, Nokia, Sony) that would also love to take a bite out of Apple and Google. Time to fire up Yahoo Messenger and ping some others in the CEO club.
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