Google+ adds a million new users a day in first month, outpacing Facebook

The new social-networking website known as Google+, search giant Google Inc.'s answer to Facebook, has attracted 25 million users in less than a month, according to market research from ComScore.

The figures do not count mobile usage and show faster growth than Facebook Inc. and MySpace in their infancy, Bloomberg reported.

Google+ had 6.44 million visitors in the United States as of July 24, ComScore senior analyst Andrew Lipsman said on a call hosted by Lou Kerner of Wedbush Securities Inc.

India was its second biggest market with 3.62 million users, ComScore said.

Overall Google+ user numbers were growing at about one million a day, Reuters reported. Facebook took about three years to attract 25 million visitors, and Twitter hit that number in a little more than 30 months.

Reuters added:

While the data show Google's latest attempt at breaking into social networking has started strongly, it may not mean the project is a long-term success. MySpace grew to 25 million unique visitors in less than two years — faster than Facebook or Twitter. However, it's lost a lot of visitors in the past year, ComScore data show.

Launched in June, Google+ allows users to connect to friends and colleagues, follow people of interest and share media such as photos, links and videos. An online debate is raging about whether it offers more or less than Facebook.

It is still nowhere near Facebook's more than 750 million users, but some analysts believe it is only a matter of time before Google+ runs down its more established peer.

Lipsman said engagement on the site was also growing, in terms of the amount of time people spent there when they logged on.

Todd Wasserman, writing at Mashable.com, said a key factor in Google+’s growth appeared to be the huge reach of its associated Gmail service. In other words, Google+ is popular where Gmail is popular.

"If you think about it, Gmail is where your social network through Google is likely to exist," Lipsman said, according to Mashable.

WebProNews reported this week that the majority of Google+ early adopters were men.

Using figures from findpeopleonplus.com and ComScore from a sampling of over 4.4 million Google+ users, Bime data analysis company concluded that males accounted for 71.2 percent of Google+ users.