Google+ Growth Rate Shattering Competition

Whether Google+ will eventually overtake Facebook and Twitter as the king of social networks is still very much uncertain. This much, however, is already known: in terms of growth rate, it is absolutely smashing them to pieces. The chart below, posted by Google's Leon Haland on Google+, shows just how quickly Google+ is growing compared to the rises of Facebook and Twitter.

As one can see, it took Google+ only twenty-four days to reach twenty million users. It took Twitter 1,035 days to reach the same number. Facebook got there in 1,152 days. To put that in perspective, Google+ got there in roughly three weeks, and Facebook and Twitter got there in roughly three years. Or, to look at it a different way, Google+ reached twenty million users forty-eight times faster than Facebook and forty-three times faster than Twitter. No matter how one examines it, the fact is quite clear: the growth rate of Google+ is running circles around those of Facebook and Twitter.

It would be a mistake, however, to take these numbers at face value; other considerations must be taken into account as well. For one, initially, Facebook users needed to have an ".edu" email address, limiting potential users to those in college. Facebook's growth almost certainly would have been faster without this limitation. Second, social media and networking is huge now, in the time of the launch of Google+. Facebook, it can be argued, made it huge. Google+ does not have to convince potential users of the benefits of social networking the way Facebook once did. Finally, Google+ has one of the world's biggest names behind it as well as a base of almost 200 million Gmail users to market to. Facebook and Twitter had neither of these.

Still, even with all this in mind, one would be remiss to deny the high-speed rise of Google+. Can it keep up its astounding pace? The answer is no; in fact, it is already slowing down. After the way it started out, this much was inevitable. The more important question, however, is this: will Google+ continue to rise and eventually overtake Twitter and Facebook as the top social networking website? The answer is not yet clear.

Do you think Google+ is on its way to the top? For more on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter, please visit Hudson Horizons.