Infant social network, Google+ continues its exponential growth and is fast out-pacing the normal developmental milestones. According to data released by Digital business analyst, comScore on Tuesday, Google+ had attracted 25 million users, making it the fastest website to reach that size.
Andrew Lipsman, comScore vice president said that on July 24, Google+ had 6.44 million users in the U.S., its biggest market, followed by India with 3.62 million users. Canada and UK contributed with around 1 million unique visitors each. Germany and Brazil had 920,000 and 780,000 unique visitors respectively, while France and Taiwan had around 500,000 each. However, these figures do not include mobile usage.Google+ which started in late June lets people connect with and manage group of friends added about 5 million visitors in less than a week to reach about 25 million, an impressive achievement given the limited, beta nature of the Google+ launch.
Engagement on the site is also on the rise. During the seven day ending July 17, the average number of days per week that U.S. visitors used the service rose 30 percent. For the week that ended July 24, usage rose 11 percent, the comScore report stated.
Reuters notes that Facebook took 3 years to reach 25 million users while Twitter needed just over 30 months to do the same.
Though Google has had a strong start it is not an assurance that the network will do well in the long run. MySpace grew to 25 million unique visitors in less than two years, faster than Facebook or Twitter but is nowhere in the reckoning now.
According to Steve Rubel, executive vice president for global strategy and insights at public relations firm Edelman, the fast growth of Google can have least effect on Facebook. “I don’t see (Google+) taking significant share from Facebook in the next 18 months,” he said.
However, there is a section of developers who are already convinced that Google+ will eventually catch up with its rival Facebook.
The new quarterly survey of mobile application developers by Web development tool maker Appcelerator and market research firm IDC found that two-thirds of the 1,621 respondents to the question “Can Google+ catch up to Facebook?” replied yes. The reason: more than 68 percent of the respondents believe Google’s other assets – search, YouTube, and maps, among others – trump Facebook’s social graph lead.
So far Google+ has avoided negative feedback which its previous social networking effort Google Buzz suffered from. Rather Google+ has created a buzz and the latest statistics has provided it with a momentum in its race against social media giant Facebook which is reported to have 750 million members.