Google+ to reach 20 million users in a week

California, Jul 13: It seems like Google has won the 'initial' war against Facebook! Before the public launch of its brand new social networking site 'Google+' (Google Plus), Google managed to hit headlines with highly hyped Google+ Invite, which is spreading like a wildfire among the social networking geeks. According to latest market research reports, Google+ marked a growth rate of 350 percentage in less than a week.

A survey report published by Paul Allen, the founder of Ancestry.com, revealed that the number of Google+ members will reach 20 million in few days. The report which was published a few days back also added that the number will cross 10 million on Tuesday, Jul 12.

"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. That is a 350% increase in six days. The userbase 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," Paul Allen.

Paul Allen used US Census Bureau data about surname popularity in the US to track the Google+ growth rate. He compared surname popularity to the number of Google+ users with each surname.

"I split the US users from the non-U.S. users. 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+. Then I use that number and a calculated ratio of U.S. to non-U.S. users to generate my worldwide estimates. My ratio is 1 US user for every 2.12 non-U.S. users. That ratio was calculated on July 4th through a laborious effort, and I haven"t updated it since. That is definitely a weakness in my model that I hope to address soon. The ratio will likely change over time," he said.

Anyhow, some of the bloggers and technology editors raised doubts about the projected growth rate. But most of them admit that Google+ is growing fast.

The famous blogger and social media writer Robert Schoble said, "This feels high to me, but it"s based on some actual research. I"d guess the actual number is closer to one million, but no matter what number you are believing in it is definitely true that Google+ is growing fast."

Google has not yet announced the release date of Google+. Meanwhile, Google allowed some of the Google+ members to send Invites to their friends. If Google keeps the Invite button for some more days, it will become one of the fastest growing service in history.

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