Engineer Retracts Google+ Failure Comment, Says it Was 'Opinionated Rant'

A senior Google engineer, who accidentally posted a condemnation of Google+ as a complete failure, said the post was a long opinionated rant and it was intended for internal consumption only.

I posted a long opinionated rant tonight about how I think Google could be doing a much better job of thinking from the ground up in terms of services rather than products. Sadly, it was intended to be an internal post, visible to everybody at Google, but not externally, a worried Steve Yegge wrote.

But as it was midnight and I am not what you might call an experienced Google+ user, by the time I figured out how to actually post something I had somehow switched accounts. I've taken the post down at my own discretion. It was kind of a tough call, since obviously there will be copies. And everyone who commented was nice and supportive, he added.

Previously, Yegge criticized his former employer Amazon before terming Google+ as a failure to understand platforms across all the levels of workers.

Yegge said Google's public relations team was very respectful and did not try to censor his assessment, as it was his personal opinion.

And I can assure you, in case it was not obvious, that the whole post was my own opinions and not Google's. I mean, I was kind of taking them to task for not sharing my opinions. I love working at Google, and I especially love the fact that I'm comfortable posting something as inflammatory as my post may have been. The company is super open internally, and as I said several times in my post, they really try hard to do everything right, Yegge said.

Google launched Google+ in June. The move is considered as Google's latest and largest social effort, and a strong reply to Facebook. The seamless integration of Google products with a single Google account is meant to force users to spend time on Google+.

Even if it has enough power to become a Facebook killer, the traffic of Google+ has plunged more than 60 percent, according to Chitika, a data analytics company based in Westborough, Mass. Google enjoyed a 1,269 percent spike in traffic after opening its social network Google+ to the public on Sept. 20.

The data shows that, on the day of its public debut, Google+ traffic skyrocketed to peak levels. But, soon after, traffic fell by over 60 percent as it returned to its normal, underwhelming state, Chikita said.

Google has not released any recent statistics about users, traffic or number of shares, but an unofficial report estimates Google+ currently has 43 million users.

Traffic reports from Compete, Quantcast and Alexa confirm that Facebook is the most popular social network, followed by Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, and social Web site creator Ning. Google+ is sixth.