Google+ rides momentum up social net ranks

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Google+ rides momentum up social net ranks

After opening membership to all, visits to Google+ skyrocket
By Sharon Gaudin
October 3, 2011 04:24 PM ET
3 Comments

Computerworld - Just weeks after opening up membership to Google+, visits to the new social network are booming.

Industry analysts say the trick will be whether Google+ can maintain the momentum that has taken its new social network to a spot in the top 10 ranking in just a matter of weeks.

"This is good growth," said Matt Tatham, spokesman for Experian Hitwise, an online traffic tracker. "Obviously, when they opened up the site, it did really well. It's down from that initial peak, [but] now they just need to sustain this traffic growth month over month."

Thatham told Computerworld on Monday that during the week of Sept. 20, when Google+ officially went from invitation-only to an open membership model, the site had 14.98 million U.S. visits. Last week, those numbers were down to 7.2 million visits.

However, the positive news is that it's still up considerably from the average 1.2 million visits the site saw between Aug. 6 and Sept. 17.

Google's new social network saw a 349% jump in visits between August and September, going from 5.4 million U.S. visits to 24.2 million, according to Hitwise.

And while Google+ is making great strides in bringing visitors to the site, it's still distinctly behind major social networking players like Facebook and Twitter.

By comparison, Facebook had 8.2 billion U.S. visits in August and 7.65 billion in September. And Hitwise reported that Twitter had 172.9 million U.S. visits in August and 144.9 million visits in September.

"The numbers for Google+ are good, but it's not really a challenger to Facebook yet, although the numbers are big enough to warrant advertiser attention," said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group.

Olds added that every time Facebook makes a misstep, as it did by tracking some users even after they had left the site and by launching yet another unpopular site redesign, it's an opportunity for Google+ to only look better by comparison and pick up a few more users.

Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group, noted that Facebook's won't force a mass migration from that site to Google+, but each instance is cumulative.

"It's too early to tell but ... if Facebook isn't careful, they could drive renewed growth to Google+, and may have already," he added.

However, it's doubtful that Google+ can't thrive on Facebook castoffs alone.

Brad Shimmin, an analyst with CurrentAnalysis, said the coming months will be a strong indicator of how popular Google+ will be - especially once the hoopla of the site's opening cools off.

"Signups are one thing," said Shimmin. "Usage is another. I think only time will tell for Google+ in terms of its ability to truly compete with Twitter and Facebook in user retention and day-to-day usage. I think Google+ holds the most promise not as a rival to Facebook but as an enterprise social networking platform."

Microsoft kills Google Chrome with bad malware signature

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Microsoft kills Google Chrome with bad malware signature
'One way to win the browser war,' says security expert


By Gregg Keizer
September 30, 2011 04:11 PM ET
22 Comments

Computerworld - Microsoft scrambled earlier today to revise an antivirus definition file that deleted Google's Chrome browser from users' PCs.

"Wow, that's certainly one way to win the browser war," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security.
Google Chrome Warning
Google told Chrome users that Microsoft incorrectly marked the browser as malware.

Storms was referring to the battle between Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) and rivals, including Chrome, for usage share. According to data from one Web metrics firm, Chrome will pass Mozilla's Firefox as the second-most-popular browser by the end of this year, pitting Google and Microsoft for the top spot.

Chrome users began reporting the specious detection of the browser early Friday in a quickly-growing thread on a Google support forum.

"This morning, after I started up the PC, a Windows Security box popped up and said I had a Security Problem that needed to be removed," said someone identified as "chasd harris" in the first message of the thread. "I clicked the Details button and saw that it was 'PWS:Win32/Zbot.' I clicked the Remove button and restarted my PC. Now I do not have Chrome. It has been removed or uninstalled."

Scores of others reported the same behavior on their Windows PCs running Microsoft's Security Essentials -- its free, consumer-grade antivirus software -- as well as Forefront, the antivirus product designed for enterprises.

Microsoft issued a corrected definition file around 10 a.m. PT Friday, about three hours after users began reporting the false positive on Google's support forum.

Several bloggers, including ZDNet's Ryan Naraine and Ed Bott, reported the problem earlier today.

Microsoft has acknowledged the gaffe, and said approximately 3,000 users were affected.

"An incorrect detection for PWS:Win32/Zbot was identified and as a result, Google Chrome was inadvertently blocked and in some cases removed from customers PCs," Microsoft said in a statement posted to the Facebook page of its malware research center. "We have already fixed the issue..., but approximately 3,000 customers were impacted."

Microsoft told users to update Security Essentials with the new definition file, then reinstall Chrome.

For its part, Google slapped a red warning banner at the top of its Google support pages that read, "Alert: Google Chrome has been incorrectly marked as malware by Microsoft security software."

Chrome was fingered as Zbot, better known as Zeus, a widespread botnet Trojan that focuses on stealing online banking credentials, which criminals then use to vacuum money from accounts.

Microsoft isn't the only security software maker to have screwed up in this way: All three of the world's largest antivirus companies -- Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro -- have issued defective definitions in the past. In some cases, those mistakes have wreaked much more havoc.

In April 2010, for example, a McAfee antivirus update crippled an unknown number of corporate PCs worldwide when it quarantined a crucial Windows XP system file.

Some users who had seen Chrome vanish when they accepted Security Essentials' advice and let the software delete "chrome.exe," said that their bookmarks had also been eliminated, and that they were not restored after reinstalling Chrome.

Others, however, said that their bookmarks had not been affected.

Computerworld replicated Security Essentials' error by manually deleting chrome.exe, but had trouble reinstalling Chrome in Windows 7 using IE to download Google's browser. Only after uninstalling the remainder of Chrome, then using Firefox to download and save the Chrome setup file was Computerworld able to restore Google's browser.

In that test, Chrome's bookmarks were reinstated.

Microsoft did not immediately reply to questions about whether the Security Essentials' snafu permanently eradicated Chrome bookmarks, as some users attested.
Published October 2nd, 2011