Technolog - Google+ to hit 100 million by February: expert

As 2011 ends, Google+ is poised to cross the 100 million user threshold by February, a feat that took Facebook four years to do.

Avid Google+ watcher and Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen (not to be confused with the Microsoft co-founder) has become something of an unofficial tracking source for G+ since his prediction early on in July that the then-newborn social network would surpass 10 million within two weeks.

In a recent post (on G+, naturally), his forecast sees G+ with 400 million users by the end of 2012. His research shows 625,000 users signing up to G+ every day and already past 62 million. But he thinks that rate is going to go up, because if it stays the way it is now, there will be only about 293 million users at the end of next year. Only! But at this rate, 100 million will join by Feb. 25 and 200 million by Aug. 3.

To spur that optimism, he pulls out this stat, which is actually quite a jolt, if it's anywhere near accurate: Nearly a quarter of all G+ users joined in December. Maybe that's due to some recent improvements, such as editing streams, the debut of G+ Pages and enhancements to Hangouts. There was also a big spike in G+ traffic when it opened up to the public, beyond private invitations, in September.

But a 60 percent decrease in traffic right after that tempered at least some of that enthusiasm.

Now though, the outlook on G+ is bullish again.