Google Double Google+ Userbase, Cut Other Services

Google CEO Larry Page has claimed that in a little under three months, Google+‘s userbase has doubled to just over 90 million users. But what he hasn’t explained is just where Google are getting these figures from.

While Facebook and Twitter view anyone who logs into their website to use the social networks specifically as a user, Google have decided that anyone who takes an action while logged into a Google account is a Google+ user.

So while you need to read or send a Tweet to be a Twitter user, you only need to check your Gmail account or edit a Google Doc to become a fully-fledged Google+ convert. Despite the fact you’ve not logged into Plus, or used any social networking tools.

This all stems from Google’s recent decision to integrate Google+ into search results, along with just about anything else they can think of. And it’s a clear signal that very soon it won’t matter whether you want to use Plus or not. If you want to use any Google products, you’ll have to +1 yourself.

Unless of course you want to use Google Picnik or Skymap, because Google are dropping them in the latest set of “spring cleaning” product clearouts.

Google have announced that the following products will all be cut by the end of April 2012, leading to widespread shrugs:

• Picnik – A photo editing service (being integrated with Google Picasa)
• Google Message Community -A backup service for Microsoft emails
• Urchin – The analytics software cannibalised for Google Analytics
• Sky Map – A map of the night sky, which is being made open source as all Google support will be dropped

Google have claimed that these services will be dropped so that more effort can be placed on improving core Google apps and services. And in making sure that you can’t access the internet without automatically becoming a Google+ user…

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