The #RLTM Scoreboard: Social Network Stats for the Week
| Facebook: | over 800 million users | via Facebook |
| Twitter: | over 200 million users | via ReadWriteWeb |
| Renren: | over 170 million users | via iResearch iUser Tracker |
| Qzone: | 480 million users | via Wikipedia |
| Sina Weibo: | over 140 million users | via SINA Corporation |
| LinkedIn: | 115 million members | via LinkedIn |
| Groupon: | 115 million subscribers | via Reuters |
| Google Plus: | 43 million users | via Mashable |
| Tumblr: | 30 million blogs | via Tumblr |
| Foursquare: | 14 million users | via Foursquare |
Please email marissa@modernmediapartners.com if you have additional updates, or a social network that you feel should be on the list.
A Big Surge for Google+
This week saw a huge gain in users and traffic for Google+, as the social network finally opened up to the public. User numbers jumped up to an estimated 50 million over the weekend (Paul Allen), with about a third of these users coming in the two days after Google+ opened itself to the public.
According to new data from Experian Hitwise, the site’s share in the social media market rose 1269% over the course of the week, with 15 million visits. These new numbers position Google+ among the top 10 social networking sites, and puts the site in position to challenge LinkedIn and MySpace in the near future. In the “Social Networking and Forums” category on Experian Hitwise, Google+ rose from #54 to #8 in the week of Sept 17-24th. While Facebook was busy rolling out new features, their “young and scrappy” (Mashable) rival social network Google+ was experiencing growth rates that hadn’t been seen since the first week of testing.
Will growth rates fizzle over the next few weeks, or will the user backlash against Facebook’s changes help sustain steady growth for its potential rival? And how much will the popularity of older Google features – Gmail, YouTube, search – draw more users to Google+?
