Different strokes for different folks, so the saying goes. As in social media dealings, there are those who aren't vain enough to let the world see how many views their profile, photos and content have been receiving in the last two hours, while there are those who are quite addicted to seeing such statistics every single minute. It really depends on one's purpose.
Google must have considered this in mind when it integrated this new feature in its Google+ platform.
The company has announced that it has updated its Google+ settings by incorporating the total number of views setting in your profile page. This way, Google+ users and their viewers can see how many people have viewed profiles and content.
"When you look at your profile, you can see your total number of views. That means you can tell how many times your content has been seen by other people, including your photos, posts, and profile page. When you look at someone else's profile or page, you can also see their total number of views. If you don't see their view count, it means they've chosen not to include one on their profile," Google says in its blog post.
Google understands its users have various reasons for going online, so it also gave another option for those who prefer to keep their stats in secret.
If you're using desktop, open your Google+ account and click on the Home tab in the upper left corner of the screen. Go to Settings and scroll to Profile. You can now check or uncheck the box found on the left side to show or hide your profile and content views. Which means you can show or hide the total number of views in your profile page.
Unfortunately, users can't adjust this setting from their mobile devices but need to head back to desktop to do this.
There's a slight disclaimer, though. The blog post says total view counts may not be exact or may not be updated in real time.
An employee at Google also shared his two cents' worth.
"Would be nice to have: Views for individual pieces of content and, since most people are logged in if they are here, Count of Unique People (for the whole thing plus individual content). I'm sure the G+ team is working on lots more metrics not just to match LinkedIn and FB, but to give us even more amazing things. Can't wait," said Avinash Kaushik, who works as a digital marketing evangelist at Google.
More than anything else, this development seems to show what kind and level of user engagement their platform also has to offer compared to other social media sites, according to observers.
