I'd give it a 5% chance of $199, a 35% chance of $249, and a 60% chance of $299. It won't be more than $299, but that's still a steep markup over the Nexus 7, which is really a fabulous tablet. I finally had a chance to spend some extended time with one last week and it impressed the hell out of me. It's the first Android tablet where I can truly say that. Every tablet I've used before that felt like a dodgy version of Android, Garguantuan Edition that was doing a rather bad impression of an iPad.

Never heard of google+ until now, does not seem to be a megahit yet.

i have my doubts it will even pay off in tablets...

IPad is too strong and Winodws tablets will soon own the market.

Google should stick to Smartphones when they are the absolute monster. But these days anything is possible but i wouldnt put much faith in Google tablets.

As you said anything is possible. I think google tablets stand a chance of making some good headway. The transistion from phone to tablet worked for Apple so why not Google. Unfortunately I can't say the same for Windows phone.

As for MS windows tablets owning the market i have my doubts - although anything is possible.

Where MS is concerned I heard the same for Windows 7 and now 8 phone owning the cellphone market and even windows 7 owning the tablet market.

These days anything is possible but i wouldnt put much faith in windows tablets owning the market...I gave them the same chance as Google tablets, they could or could not.

I am not saying you are wrong, you could very well be right. Time will tell so let's wait and see.

I think Google will make good headway into the tablet market but I don't think we'll see Android domination extend to the tablet market like we have phones. First and foremost, Google doesn't have price on its side the same way it did with phones... Tablets aren't subsidized by carriers, meaning there are no "free" tablets from consumers. Google beat Apple to the free phone market in a big, bad way and gained a lot of market share through those phones.

Second, Android is now getting really high quality tablets but their app ecosystem is still lagging waaaaaayyy behind iOS. That will slow them down a bit in the short-term. There is also a lot riding on the new iPad Mini. How Apple markets that and the price point could dampen Android's growth for quite some time. If the Mini launches at $249, the Nexus 7 suddenly doesn't look like the world-beater it is today (still a great tablet, though).

In the long run, none of that will matter much, though. Apple is fighting a losing marketshare battle because of their closed hardware and ecosystem. They should always be a significant player in the market (maybe even holding 1/3 or better of the market) but ultimately, lack of options and price will keep away a considerable amount of consumers.

No, the real danger to Android is going to come from Microsoft. If they manage to pull off this hybrid desktop/tablet market they're so eager to tap, businesses could flock to the system by the millions. In the long run, this is Microsoft's war to lose. They have the best UI, they have the business experience, they have integration that makes Apple and Google drool in envy, and they have some great hardware ideas. The question is whether they can get their act together and win another war in the consumer computing space, something they haven't been able to do in 15 years.

Ok fine, but realize that twitter is six years old versus G+'s being just one or1.5 years old.so it's grown at a higher rate and looking at the trend, will outclass twitter by mid year in 2013 bc google has a richer service all around than twitter.

It has better :

Marketing- twitter doesnt have the worlds biggest search engine funneling users to it in the same way as google does.  Every time somebody is logged in while searching, google puts G+ threads as a result in the top 10.  So people come in by accident, versus twitter actually having to pay somebody else (usually google) for ppc advertising

Video chat-  twitter doesn't have a video chat feature

Demographics- twitter has a poorer user base, due to it being a minorityfriendly social media service.  So, g+ users have more money to spend, making it a better place to advertise on

Integration of features: google integrates Gmail, Google Maps, Google Play, etc making G+ a hands-down better service

I'd like to see demographics that show this to be the case. Twitter has evolved into the premiere mobile social network. People who use mobile devices are, by and large, not "poor". In fact, they're often the exact opposite. Nearly everyone has access to a computer at some point during the day but far fewer have a smartphone or tablet with a cellular data connection.

And actually, Twitter is one of the best services for driving advertising (Twitter just hasn't found a good way to capitalize on it yet). Facebook and G+ are, first and foremost, "friends" tools. My Facebook friends are mostly my *real* friends. People I've talked to in real life. People I hang out with regularly. That's the driving force behind Facebook and to a lesser extent, G+.

Twitter, on the other hand, is an "interest" social network. On Twitter, my follow list is dominated by my interests, not people I actually know in real life. I follow comic book creators and companies. I follow baseball writers. I follow tech companies. I follow the things that interest me because it's the best user-focused news-gathering source on the Internet. You follow people and companies who share a common interest and (often passively) read what they're talking about and what news interests you that day. That's an amazing tool to drive user-specific advertising at people... Twitter just needs to find a way to take advantage of it.

In fact, here's an interesting study that largely backs up my thoughts on social networking.

http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/twitter-users-more-mobile-17930/compete-social-media-usage-by-location-jun11gif/

I have the demographics to back my statements up, look at the link given.  

Minorities, sadly bc of racism by whites and de facto kind of situations just don't earn as much rocket pig, but we aren't really debating the morality of that, but rather, who the users of twitter are.  And the demographics study quoted in this article that I'm linking say that twitter is heavily focused on minorities, not that this is a bad thing at all, but the advertising just won't be as rich.

Here is the demographics that you've asked for, sorry to bust your bubble......

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-demographics-2012_b23387

Interesting. Of course, Twitter also skews younger, which is a good thing for advertising. The hardest market to capture is the young male market, which Twitter seems to cover quite well. Even if young people don't make much money, teenagers and twenty-somethings are the most lucrative market for advertising because they spend such a large percentage of their income on useless crap, essentially.

I'd like to see that same test performed with Facebook and see how the various social networks stack up against one another.

Androids smartphone & tablet marketshare are both at the highest they'll ever be right now