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Google+ use explodes in a matter of days
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
July 14th, 2011
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
July 14th, 2011
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
Google+ has been a runaway success - so much so, that many estimate that
the new social networking site will grow to at least 10 million users
by this weekend. That's considerable, considering that Google+ is only a
few weeks old.
"My surname-based analysis shows that the number of Google+ users worldwide reached 7.3 million yesterday (July 10)-up from 1.7 million users on July 4th," Ancestry.com Paul Allen wrote in a Google+ post. "That is a 350% increase in six days. The user base is growing so quickly that it is challenging for me to keep up, since the number of users of any given surname (even the rare ones I am tracking) seems to be climbing every day."
Allen says that even more impressively, it appears that approximately 2.2 million people have joined Google+ in the last 32 to 34 hours, for a total of about 9.5 million people on Monday.
Allen expects user numbers to grow to 10 million today and 20 million by the weekend, provided invites remain open. "As one G+ user put it, it is easy to underestimate the power of exponential growth," Allen wrote.
Allen says he looked at U.S. Census Bureau data about the popularly of last names in the U.S. and the compared it with the number of Google+ users who had the same last names.
"By using a sample of 100-200 surnames, I am able to accurately estimate the total percentage of the U.S. population that has signed up for Google+," he wrote. "Then I use that number and a calculated ratio of U.S. to non-U.S. users to generate my worldwide estimates."
Allen's ratio is one U.S. user for every 2.12 non-U.S. Google+ user, a ratio that has not been updated since July 4. "That is definitely a weakness in my model that I hope to address soon. The ratio will likely change over time," Allen said.
Google, has remained mum on actual numbers of new users. "We don't have any comment on the number of people in the Google+ Field Trial," a Google spokeswoman said. When it re-opened Google+ invites recently, the company said it wanted to double the number of people in its "field trial," but declined to say exactly how many people that entailed.
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