Google+ Moving Away from Early Adopters to 'Early Mainstream' Users

Unsurprisingly perhaps, but Google+ is moving away from the early adopters crowd to a more mainstream group of users, according to new research. Of course, this trend is unavoidable, but this is happening a little over a month after Google+ launched.

Granted, Google+ is not exactly mainstream yet, but it is becoming more popular with what Experian Hitwise, the company doing the research, calls 'early' mainstream users.

"Using the Experian Hitwise sample of over 10mm Internet users in the U.S., combined with our New Mosaic segmentation system launched this summer, its possible to visualize the adoption of Google+," Hitwise writes.

"Careful analysis of the Mosaic segments since launch; reveal that in just over six weeks, we’ve moved from innovators to early adopters to early mainstream users visiting the new social network," it says.

When Google+ first became available, it was a quick hit with what Hitwise calls the "Colleges and Cafés" and the "Status Seeking Singles" crowd. Those falling into these categories were a lot more likely to visit Google+ than anyone else. 

This peaked two weeks after Google+ launched, but since, visits from other groups of users are becoming more likely to the point that these early adopters are no longer the ones visiting the site the most.

These days, the average Google+ visitors falls into either the "Status Seeking Singles" group or the equally interestingly named "Kids and Cabernet" group.

Perhaps it's best to explain how these groups are defined. Colleges and Cafés are recent college graduates who still frequent the same places and interact with the same type of people they did in college.

On the other hand, the group that is more likely to visit Google+ now, Kids and Cabernet, is described as "Prosperous, middle-aged married couples living child-focused lives in affluent suburbs."

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