(Image source: bendbulletin)

BY ALEJANDRA QUINTELA

ANCHOR JIM FLINK

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is no longer the most popular Google + user-- according to the Social Statistics rankings. Geek.com explains why.


“Zuckerberg apparently changed his privacy settings to stop showing the number of friends and followers, which bumped him out of first place. And Zuck’s not the only one who changed his settings.”

The Next Web reports -- top Google management members also closed off their accounts on Tuesday.

“It seems that the data on who these users are following and who is following them have disappeared from their profiles, which could point to a number of theories — from experiments with privacy features to a new company policy for Googlers on the network designed to curb the popularity contest.”


But a blogger over at ZDnet points out- the default setting on G+ profiles is total openness, which begs the question...


“If Google feels that standardizing on these settings is important for their privacy, why isn’t it the default for the rest of us?”

And a comment contributor for the Inquirer brings this theory to the table:


“Since they all did it at the same time you must conclude that either they became aware of some flaw or they agreed it was silly to steal the show... Or maybe there's some secret VIP google++ added now that only a selected few have access to.”

With Zuck and Google execs bumped from the list, the new most popular user is tech blogger Robert Scoble. How did he get so many circle friends? He tweeted this, when Zuck first joined G+.


“Name drop moment. Zuckerberg just texted me back. Says ´Why are people so surprised that I´d have a Google account?´,” (The Inquirer)

When Zuck topped the list, Social Statistics reports he had 21,213 followers and 39 friends.