Today marks the one year anniversary of the launch of Google+, and at their recent developers conference, Google emphasized how their little social "non-network" has exceeded expectations.
To begin with, Google emphasized that around 250 million users have signed up to use Google+. Of those, 150 million are active, and the average Google+ user spends 12 minutes on the service. Adding to their further foray into tablets and phones, Google also said that a majority of its users access Google+ via a mobile device.
Keep in mind that Facebook, launched in 2004 and has just over 900 million users after eight years.
Back in 2011, Google+ passed 50 million users in just over 80 days.
The growth of Google+ is a promising avenue for Google to continue down as it moves to become a more inclusive service in people's lives. Their Nexus Q home entertainment/streaming system, their Nexus 7 tablet, and even Project Glass are all part of Google's attempt to be more than just a search engine. They want to compete with Apple and Microsoft through tablets and operating systems, and with Facebook for social networking.
Google+ even comes with a new event planning mode that allows users to preplan "before," "during," and "after" features. By choosing a video, or layout for the invitation, one can then set the Google+ event to constantly update photos of the event in real time, allowing everyone to log in later and view them.
Google+ originally started as Google Circles, in which people organized their friends into different cliques that could communicate with each other. The service was ill-reviewed, and Google rectified the social network by adding more features such as "hangouts" and renaming it Google+.
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