If you’ll remember, the numbers as reported last week were less than balanced. Early estimates, as seen here and elsewhere, pegged Google’s new social networking service with a nearly 90-10 split of guys to girls. Not exactly healthy!
But not so fast. Firstly, many Giz readers stood up and said I use Google+, and I have girl parts. Secondly, fresh research from Ancestry.com that utilized a “surname-based random sampling” method revealed that Google+ is only about 66.4% male. The network is quickly equalizing: Three days before the 66.4% number was spit out, the network was 77% male.
There’s still a long way to go before this network proves it’s worth anyone’s time, but these numbers are promising, especially for you members of the fairer sex who might have been a bit apprehensive about jumping into the pool. [All Things D]
Travis
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 9:21 AMI thought that with the ‘must disclose’ gender being such an issue it could be that many women are choosing not to tag themselves as Female just to reduce the chance of being targeted by gender.
nicky
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 9:50 AM[utilized a “surname-based random sampling” ]
how exactly will they know my gender by my (fake) surname?
i think the biggest downfall of G+ will be the “facebook killer” taglines…my FB junkie friends have signed on to G+ and are saying “soooo, what do you do?”, and they promptly log on to FB
Seth Gecko
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 10:12 AMThey don’t – they pick say 100 surnames at random from their archives, then go looking for profiles of people on G+ with that last name. % of males/females is based on a manual check… rather than trying to check all 20m+ profiles.
Anne
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 10:07 AMI don’t see the big issue as to whether more males or females are using Google+. The real issue here is that as mentioned above, some women want to be able to social network without being “harassed” online. Regardless of whether you opt to place your gender on the site, your name is STILL there. You should have the option of being able to Social Network providing as much or as little information as you want.
Personally, I’ve switched to OnlyMeWorld. I like the freedom I have in being able to just choose a username and not really need to provide any other information.
james_whatsit
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 1:12 AMgo away shiromasa yamamoto. MODS!!! KILL THIS ADVERTISING!!! :)
chris
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 4:31 PMhi everybody,
any one out there generous enough to invite me to google+ :)
Ted
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 5:29 PMDid you pay Giz ad revenue for that post?
Steve
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 9:53 PMWhy do people care if there are girls on Google+ or not? It’s an invite-only beta, so no kidding 99% of the people using it are currently (for the most part) bleeding edge nerds.
It’s not OKCupid.