Google+ Takes Off With 20M Visitors

Impresses observers after 3 weeks online
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 22, 2011 1:34 PM CDT
Social Networking: Google+ Takes Off With 20M Visitors
Google has quickly gained millions of users.   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

Google’s new social networking site, Google+, has gotten an impressive 20 million unique visitors in its first 3 weeks online; of those, 5 million are from the US. And that’s with access still limited only to those who have been invited by other members—and without any advertising yet through Google’s search engine or Gmail, the Wall Street Journal notes. “I've never seen anything grow this quickly,” says an analyst at comScore. The company hasn't confirmed the visitor numbers but said last week it had more than 10 million users.

Meanwhile, privacy advocates who slammed Google’s earlier social system, Buzz, are more comfortable with the new service. Google+ makes it “easier to share with one group of your friends while retaining some measure of privacy with respect to your family, coworkers, or other groups of friends," notes one watchdog. Still, he warns, “Google+ won't be as good for protecting your privacy against Google.” So now that Google+ is off to a promising start, what next? PC World looks at the possibilities, which include reaching out to businesses and gamers. (More Google Plus stories.)

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