If you are still hoping that Google+ is going to go away sometime soon, then I'm afraid that you're going to have to think again. It's now moved up into second place in the rankings for the number of active users, still way behind Facebook, but in front of Twitter, as this graph from Zdnet shows: 
Google+, which many people have written off time and time again actually grew in 2012 27% to 343m users. I can only see this increasing, with the use of the Communities function, which is where I'm getting most of my really good quality conversations now. There's no doubt that Google is going to be pushing the social network even more in 2013 than it did last year.
Sorry, pedant/easily confused here. Did you mean Facebook rather than Yahoo!?
I wonder if there are more Google accounts in the world than FB accounts? That could be an interesting angle to look at G+ growth from.
Posted by: Andrew | January 28, 2013 at 11:54 AM
Sorry Andrew, thanks for correcting me; updated it. :)
Posted by: Phil Bradley | January 28, 2013 at 03:14 PM
Hey Phil! Have been reading you for years. I've posted twice, I think. Thank you for all the posts, reviews, and information. You have helped me immensely through your analysis and announcements.
Okay, that said, these numbers come from here: http://globalwebindex.net/thinking/social-platforms-gwi-8-update-decline-of-local-social-media-platforms
Make sure to check out Brett's post in the comments too. These numbers are far from authoritative. The definition of activity is "Used or contributed to in the past month", and all data comes from online surveys. No word what the N was.
G+ IS a ghost town for the most part. There are so many considerations here. You know how if you search for a business on google, often instead of a maps page, you get sent to a google plus page? Does that count as use? And even asking that is giving too much credence to these numbers, in my opinion. I'd love to see the methodology in detail.
I loved G+ when it started. Just like Google wave. I like G+, and I know people who are active there. But I can't pretend like it's blowing up. It isn't.
Posted by: Jeff | January 28, 2013 at 04:43 PM