Google+ Liked More Than Facebook, Survey Says

Facebook might have 900+ million users but when it comes to the social network people actually prefer Google+ has the upper hand. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) recently concluded a customer satisfaction survey of businesses throughout 47 industries and it found that Facebook is losing the respect of users year-over-year.

Out of the 20 companies featured in the survey Facebook dropped the most points, falling from a score of 66 out of 100 in 2011 to 61 out of 100 in 2012. Across all ACSI reports Facebook is in the five lowest-scoring companies of the 230 examined.

Google+ on the other hand is holding strong, consumers gave the search giant’s attempt at social networking a score of 78 out of 100, 17-points better than Facebook.

So why the big difference in scoring? Google’s commitment to privacy appears to be the biggest point of contention for many users. Others found that Facebook ads are more annoying and that Google+ offers a faster mobile experience. Users also pointed to their disgust with the Facebook Timeline feature.

Facebook is attempting to fix its platform, recently announcing plans to speed up its Facebook Mobile app by rewriting the program with an emphasis taken off of HTML5 which has slowed the app to a crawl.

According to the ACSI report:

“If Google+ continues to attract users at an aggressive pace, Facebook will run the risk of losing its main competitive advantage over time.”

Facebook isn’t alone in its struggles, Twitter scored 64 out of 100, LinkedIn managed just 63 out of 100 and YouTube scored a 73 out of 100.

Google is still winning in the search engine race with a score of 82 out of 100 but Bing is close behind with 81 out of 100.

The biggest winner was FoxNews.com which scored an 84 out of 100, the best satisfaction score for any online business.

Give Google+ one more year and 100 million more users and I’m positive the social network will fall prey to its own success just as Facebook has in recent years.