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From a business point of view, what Google will care about is pageviews and pageviews/user (because that determines the #of ads they can show).

It may be that having fewer friends makes you update more and check more often (because it's more relevant). Or it may be that having more friends causes you to check back.

Another metric that drives revenue is how long you stay an active member -- that also might be better the more intimate your relationships are.

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People have to stop saying this. Google isn't so blind as to think every product's sole purpose is to drive pageviews.

I'm speculating just as much as you are, but I don't think it's unreasonable to guess that a big part of Google+ is to drive usage of its other products. Once people start sharing directions, collaborating on documents, and so on G+ will be there to introduce users to one product after another. Sure, social ads may/will be important, but saying "what Google will care about is pageviews" is simplifying it immensely.

That's why I prefaced it with "from a business point of view" -- to imply that it isn't the "sole purpose", but it's certainly looked at. I'm not saying that they will game the system by forcing page-views when not needed by the product, but that they will judge success based on usage, not average friend count.

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