More Than Two-Thirds of Google+ Activity Is Private

While following the activity of tech industry folks and celebrities on Google+ might lead you to believe that Google’s new social network is a sort of long-form Twitter, where users pontificate for a public audience, Google says that’s not the case.

(Seriously, watching the volume and speed of comments on new posts by Myspace founder and Google+’s leading armchair critic Tom Anderson is simply insane.)

In fact, Google+ users are two to three times more likely to share privately with one of their Circles than post publicly, Google revealed for a profile in the San Jose Mercury News. (The Merc article talks about “general” posts, but Google+ commander Vic Gundotra clarified that this means “public” posts.)

That’s an important metric, and one that validates Google+’s aim to be a more private social network.

Google announced last week that Plus is already facilitating one billion items shared and received per day. That measurement does not include public shares, and it’s counted a bit oddly, as I wrote at the time: