Google+ users spend 3.3 minutes a month on it

ADVERTISING BROKER Google manages to get Google+ users to use the service just 3.3 minutes a month.

According to research outfit Comscore, Google+ US users spend a mere 3.3 minutes a month on the social network, adding to the widely held notion that it is still a ghost town. In comparison, Comscore's figures for Facebook suggest that US users are on that social network for 7.5 hours a month.

Google said that it now has 90 million Google+ users, a doubling since October 2011. However that figure means very little if those users don't spend much time using the service, and while Comscore's figures might not be a definitive gauge of Google+ popularity, it certainly doesn't do anything to remove the sense that Google's social network push is failing to dent Facebook.

Facebook on the other hand will look at these figures as a way of bolstering its value as it gets ready for its initial public offering. It is expected that the firm will be valued close to $100bn, and on the basis that Comscore's figures actually showed Facebook users spending more time than ever before, the firm will be confident of hitting and perhaps even exceeding the $100bn mark.

Comscore's figures show that Google will need to do more than just blurt out Google+ user numbers if it wants its social network to be taken seriously. µ