Google Plus Users Number 40 Million And Counting

Google Plus, the search engine giant's social network, has now crossed the 40 million user mark. This statistic is all the more impressive considering the timeframe in which this was achieved: Google+ was initially launched in June 2011, in a beta format, and it only recently opened its doors to the public in September 2011.

If you still can't appreciate this statistic, consider the case of Facebook: one of the world's largest social networks, which was founded in 2004, it took three years to gather a user base of 25 million - it achieved a user base of 50 million users in October 2007. Of course, it could be pointed out that the respective periods of time when these competing social media services were developed were also vastly different: in 2004, the concept of social media was just in its infancy as opposed to 2011, when it has grown to become an almost integral segment of the online world.

This is the second record that Google Plus has achieved - back in August, the Internet's giant's social network was the fastest to attract 25 million unique visitors, in less than a month since it initial launch. These numbers are definitely impressive, but they don't tell the whole story - many of the Google+ users are reportedly not that active.

It's left to be seen whether there will be a clear winner in the social media arena, as on the one side you have Google Plus, with its rapidly expanding user base, and on the other hand, there is Facebook, which already has a massive 800 million user base worldwide. And more importantly, it will depend upon which of these two companies can push forward their respective advantages to outdo the other. Things could also end up in a stalemate, with neither company being able to best the other. From a consumer's point of view, the continued competition can only benefit the end user, and that is always good news - a case in point would be Facebook tailoring a number of it's features to 'compete' with similar features that appeared in Google Plus, such as 'Circles'.

Via @economictimes

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