July 05, 2011, 1:25 PM —
REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
Does this bode well for Google's new social network, or is it digital karma of the worst kind?
Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has emerged as the most-followed user on Google+ since the social network's June 28 launch.
(Also see: Google links employee bonuses to success of social strategy)
According to
SocialStatistics.com, Zuckerberg has 29,543 followers, 49 percent more than runner-up Larry Page, Google's co-founder and CEO, with 19,878.
How can this not be galling to Page? The guy's tying the bonus of all Google employees this year to the company's success in social networking -- in other words, its success in challenging Facebook -- and Zuckerberg is the most-popular person on Google+?
Not only that, Zuck hasn't posted
one single thing on his Google+ account -- nothing about which animal he single-handedly killed and ate today, nothing about any totally awesome things being unveiled this week by Facebook, nothing at all! -- since joining.
No. 3 on the Google+ most-followed list is Vic Gundrota, who leads Google's social media efforts, with 15,793, while Google's other co-founder, Sergey Brin, comes in at fourth with 15,646 followers.
The rest of the Google+ list of most-followed is refreshingly free of pop-culture celebrities, though that's because it's invitation-only at this point. That'll change when the hordes are allowed inside the gates.
Which, of course, must happen if Google expects to pose any kind of challenge to Facebook, which claims more than 650 million users worldwide. Because without celebrities and celebrity-fawners, a social network is nothing.
