Why Google+ is male oriented

General trends show that men take more quickly to new technology than women, thus recently Google+ numbers were striking: 86.8 percent of male users as reported by SocialStatistics and 73.7 percent by FindPeopleOnPlus. These are early days for Google+, yet it is worrisome when you think of Facebook that has a more user base comprising females.

The inviting restrictions may put a crimp on Google+'s plans to seriously rival Facebook. Understandably, Facebook's downloadable data cannot be imported to Google+ by any direct means. And if the current trend continues (of greater number of male users), the networking effect may make things difficult for Google+ as it did for Digg, a social news website. In Digg's case, the primarily young male target audience may have discouraged other groups from joining.

Another possible reason behind the male-dominated user base may be Google's inability to break free of the stereotypical user profile of the tech-savvy male. The stats provided by FindPeopleOnPlus which shows 60 percent users self-identified as software engineers or web developers attest to that fact.

Google+ has also managed to court controversy with its mandatory gender declaration requirement. At the time of launch, it was being shared as public information, and was criticized because it was an invasion of privacy. Additionally, the gender options of “Male”, “Female” and “Other” were seen as limiting. Google+ has since then provided privacy settings for the gender field.

According to the existing policy, China and Iran have blocked Google+. So if we consider the larger picture of why Google+ users are predominantly male, this censorship issue also needs to be taken into account. It naturally follows that censoring the services of Google+ has discouraged female users from joining and thus had an impact on the gender ratio.