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Google+ sets a cracking pace: 10 million users after just two weeks

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

July 16, 2011 | 3 min read

With Facebook on 750 million, it would seem to be a one-horse race - but Google+ got to its first 10 million far faster than Facebook - and the pace is accelerating

Ten million is an enormous number, "and makes it likely that Google+ has had the fastest out-of-the-gate velocity of any social network ever," said one American commentator.

Facebook, the world's leading social network at 750 million, took more than two years to reach 10 million . And it only got there after opening its network beyond college students and high-school pupils. Twitter grew much more slowly and even now there is no official count of active users . Games on existing social networks grow much faster. Zynga’s most recent launch, Empires & Allies, reached 10 million users in nine days. Bill Gross, UberMedia CEO and Twitter kingpin, has predicted that Google+ will hit 100 million users faster than any service in history. Only 90 million to go - and 650 million after that to catch Facebook. The Google+ 10 million milestone was forecast by an unusual outside researcher. Paul Allen, founder of Ancestry.com now at FamilyLink, calculated the percent of the U.S. population that had signed up for Google+ by comparing user surnames to census data and extrapolating for international users. He estimated Google+ had 10 million users as of July 12 (two days before Larry Page's announcement).

Google VP Bradley Horowitz gave credit to Allen in a Google+ post. “Paul Allen... Tip of the hat to you sir. Neat parlour trick.!” Remember that Google+ is still invitation-only. "Just imagine what would happen if Google opened the floodgates by promoting Plus on all its products," said Liz Gannes, of All Things Digital. * Of course , as you will have heard, Mark Zuckerberg is the most followed person on Google+, with 44,871 followers. Zuckerberg hasn't posted anything publicly and in his profile says simply, "I make things."

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