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What are people doing with Google+ and Facebook right now, you may wonder, several months after Google finally unleashed its formerly top-secret Facebook competition to the public at large.  Thanks to the passage of time and a few well poised surveys, we now have some data that can be used to answer that question.  One set of people previously believed that there wasn’t room enough in this social town for two major social networking sites to coexist.  Others insisted Google+ would actually destroy Facebook.  Others still were certain that Google+ would quietly disappear from the radar after a few months, rather like the failed Google Wave of a few years ago.  Everyone was wrong.

In fact, people are using both Facebook and Google+ in ways that might surprise you.  It seems that people who have two accounts are the ones with the most to say about the dual social networking phenomenon:

“I’m using Facebook mainly for family and friends now, same as I used to.  Lots of them weren’t even interested in G+, so making a complete switch wasn’t an option for me either. But I do use Google+ to network with strangers who share certain interests I have.  It’s mostly interest based social networking, I guess you could say.” said one user.

Here is a graphic that will show you how people are using both of these social networks: