Google+ “invading” Asia, although blocked in China

PanARMENIAN.Net - Google+ is now up to 90 million users worldwide and while the spotlight shines on its battle with Facebook and Twitter, and the ongoing enhancements it makes to its platform, Google says that the social network is making strong progress in Asia, The Next Web reports.

Asia is a regional that is largely dominated by Facebook, which has overtaken a number of rivals that once ruled markets across the continent, including Friendster, Hi5 and Google’s own Orkut. There are notable exceptions however, namely China, Japan and Korea, but in the latter two things are moving Facebook’s way slowly.

While Google carefully guards its user figures and doesn’t break out data based on country or region, Ryan Hayward, who oversees marketing for Google+ across Asia, told The Next Web that the social network is making good progress in the continent.

Hayward points to a number of areas which he says are helping Google+ record significant uptake from users and content creators across Asia, the being celebrities, politics and business.

While Google has insisted that China is still a key part of its plans for the region, Google+ is blocked in the country, where it is only accessible through a virtual private network (VPN) system which bypasses the Great Firewall Web censors.

However, Google does still count on the support of one of the country’s most visible social media figures, artist and political activist Ai Weiwei, whose has quickly built 47,000 Google+ followers away from his 120,000 Twitter followers.