---
title: "Google Plus Users 2-3 Times More Likely to Post Privately"
date: 2011-09-21
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2011"
    url: "/tag/2011.md"
---

# Google Plus Users 2-3 Times More Likely to Post Privately

![](https://web.archive.org/web/20120210210048im_/http://rww.readwriteweb.netdna-cdn.com/googleplus150.jpg)Today at the Strata Summit on Big Data, Google’s Bradley Horowitz noted an [intriguing statistic about Google Plus usage](https://web.archive.org/web/20120210210048/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_plus_the_data_scientist_whos_navigating_it.php): users of Google Plus are **two to three times as likely to post content to private circles than they are to post it publicly.** As our own Marshall Kirkpatrick commented, these numbers suggest the Circles metaphor is working.

Horowitz is VP of Product Management and a leader of the Google Plus social network, so he knows better than anyone the usage data. Still, I am very surprised to hear that private posts are 2-3 times as likely as public posts on Google Plus. I myself hardly ever post privately and I had thought that not many of the people I follow do either. So let’s do an informal poll: **do you regularly post privately in Google Plus?**

I also asked the question [on my own Google Plus profile](https://web.archive.org/web/20120210210048/https://plus.google.com/104458801156000551882/posts), where you can leave a comment if you like.

This statistic from Horowitz may explain the recently reported [apparent drop](https://web.archive.org/web/20120210210048/http://89n.com/blog/manageflitter/google-public-posts-decrease-41-over-past-two-months) in Google Plus activity. If 2-3 times more people are posting privately than publicly, then it’s likely that Google Plus usage is being significantly under-reported. However we’d love to see actual numbers from Google about this, so we will follow up with Horowitz.

We’ll evaluate the replies to our informal poll in a later post.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_plus_users_2-3_times_more_likely_to_post_privately.php))*