When Google announced Google+, their new social media site, it expected the platform to be the "Facebook killer," a social site that would beat out all others. However, the following years showed that the site had little to no social stickiness. Everyone assumed that the site was not being used by creators. However, after years of speculation a data blogger and a "technological archaeologist" confirmed everyone's assumption.
Kevin Anderson discovered the work of self-described "technological archaeologist" Edward Morbius, Morbius used a complex data algorithm to discover what Google+'s publicly active userbase is. Morbius' methods found the evidence that everyone was looking for. Anderson then went on to convert it into a visual graphic that made the point clear.
According to Morbius' data, there are more than 2 billion Google+ accounts -- and this is in part because of Google accounts automatically creating a Google+ account, as well as Google's decision to require a Google+ account to comment on YouTube.
However, only 9 percent of those users publicly posted on Google+. Most of the active accounts had either used it to comment on YouTube or change their profile picture. Only 6 percent of that 9 percent of public posters were active in the Google+ social media network.
What's 6 percent of 9 percent? It's 0.2 percent. In other words, a fifth of a percent of public Google+ accounts were actively posting on the social media network. If that's not clear proof that Google+ is a ghostland, then I don't know what is.
There is one caveat to Morbius' data: it doesn't include non-public postings. But it's unlikely that this will affect the numbers enough to make a significant change to the percentage of users.
Many people had suspected the low user numbers for a while. When Re/Code asked Google+ head David Besbris about the user number estimates, he declined to comment. This decline has caused many analysts suspect that things were going downhill.
But even if the data that Kevin Anderson and Edward Morbius discovered is semi-accurate, then Google+ is a clear failure for the tech mogul.
