14 DAY TRIAL // Google+ keeps on growing, fueled by Google's huge presence. It's hard to detach Google+ growth and popularity from Google itself so it's hard to compare it to other similar sites.
It's also hard to know how much of a correlation there is between the number of users who've created a Google+ profile and the ones that active use the service.
Still, Google+ now has 400 million users, less than a year and a half after launch. The site just celebrated its first birthday in June, late June actually.
At the time, it had an impressive stat to share, 250 million people had created a Google+ profile. 150 million more in less than three months is even more impressive.
"This week we also hit an important milestone--over 400,000,000 people have upgraded to Google+. It was only a year ago that we opened public sign-up, and we couldn’t have imagined that so many people would join in just 12 months," Google+ chief Vic Gundotra wrote.
But, for the very first time, he also shared a much more important figure, the active users number. And, unlike the last time, Google is actually providing an active users number, i.e. it's saying how many people visit plus.google.com or use the mobile apps in a month.
That number is 100 million, not bad, but not huge either. Still, it is the first time we've gotten such an honest number from Google.
When Google+ turned one year old, Google counted 150 million monthly active users. But it counted those that clicked on the notification box that's spread across the Google sites or engaged with Google+ in one way or another, not necessarily by visiting the site or using the mobile apps.
"While Google+ is all about creating a better experience across Google, it’s also a destination. And here too, I’m happy to report that we have just crossed 100,000,000 monthly active users on Google+ (plus.google.com and mobile app)," Gundotra explained.