By the Numbers: Google+ the Biggest Social Network Launch Ever?

Two-week-old Google+ has 10 million users, Google CEO Larry Page announced yesterday. That's an enormous number, and makes it likely that Google+ has had the fastest out-of-the-gate velocity of any social network ever. Of course, Google itself has one billion monthly unique visitors and just a teensy bit of brand recognition, and it seeded its new network carefully. But Plus is invite-only. Just imagine what would happen if Google opened the floodgates by promoting Plus on all its products. If we look back, Google actually did have a bigger social network launch in the past, but not organically: It rolled out Buzz as a feature of Gmail available to all users. (Google doesn't say how many Gmail users there are, but it's well into the millions.) Facebook, by contrast, took more than two years to reach 10 million users, and only hit the milestone after opening its network beyond college and high-school students. Facebook's numbers are slightly different, because it only counts users who were active within the last month. But at this point, every single Google+ member has been active within the last month. I'd like to cast a broader net for examples, if anyone has them, but I'm having trouble finding historical active user counts for fast-growing networks like Sina Weibo. We also know Twitter grew somewhat slowly out of the gate, but it has resisted disclosing official active user counts.

Clic.