It took Facebook and Twitter more than two years each to hit the 20 million user mark. It took pluckly lil' social media startup Google+ two weeks to do the same. Last week, the (currently) invite-only Google+ passed an estimated 10 million users, and on Friday, doubled that number.
This graph above, built by tech engineer Leon Håland, provides a startling visual of the various trajectories, with Google+ taking off like an M16, while its competitors look like they're taking their time toddling up the social networking hill.
"I've never seen anything grow this quickly," Andrew Lipsman, vice president of industry analysis at comScore told the Wall Street Journal. Twitter accumulated as many new visitors quickly in 2009, he said, "but that happened over several months."
As drastic as this difference is, nobody's surprised and of course, past performance isn't an indicator of future gains. Facebook and Twitter started from scratch, while Google+ lives on the top navigation on a 13-year-old search engine so ingrained with how we live now, it's also a verb (as in, "to Google"). Google also owes thanks to Facebook and Twitter, where friends offer up their extra semi-exclusive invites to Google+ to those who call dibs.
Google+ membership may very well level off after the initial excitement dies down, and it's still got a ways to go to compete with Facebook's 750 million users and Twitter's 200 million accounts.
More on Google+:
- Google+ to pass 18 million users, many of them ladies
- Hitler outraged over Google+
- How creepy is Google+ exactly?
Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook ... and see if you can find her on Google+. She triple-dog dares you!