Google+ on one-month birthday already poised to be major social networker

GlobalPost

Got Google+ yet G?  If you don't you might be missing the latest social networking boat.

On Thursday Google+ marked its one-month birthday and already a major social networking player, computerworld reported today.

Google rolled out its social network on June 28 and quickly gained 10 million users in its first two weeks (and another 10 million since then) and had people seeking invitations from close friends and total strangers.

See GlobalPost: Google "shocked" at Google+ success

Google+ has  gained a lot of interest in the lucrative enterprise market with businesses jumping over themselves to set up Google+ accounts, even though the network has asked companies to wait until a business version is ready in a few months.

"With tens of millions of users and Google behind it, Google+ has become a major player," said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. "It has a good vibe going for it. The product is embracing concepts from Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook…. The end result is a higher average quality of information and less overall information traffic, making the service more useful for most."

There was an extraordinary demand for Google+ invites during the social network's first week of existence, USA Today reported. Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg became Google+'s most popular user. Some users claime they planned to defect from Facebook.

Google+ continued to build momenutn and hit 10 million users around July 12. Celebrities such as William Shatner, Paris Hilton and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper have embraced it. Google+ had 20 million unique visitors July 22, according to comScore.

But tech geeks at ZDNet say it's doomed to fail based on other Google products that flamed out quickly.

Google Buzz, too, launched to a "flurry of hype." Google wound up paying $8.5 million in a privacy lawsuit. Buzz is still in operation, but enthusiasm diedboth within and without Google very quickly. Google Wave, the company’s big play into combining instant messaging, was tossed entirely when it failed to find an audience.

Visits to Google+ are showing signs of decline, even as Wall Street has begun taking a closer look at Google’s margins on the social network. 

Time will tell if G+ keeps gathering friends.

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