Google+ hits 20 million users in just in 3 weeks

The launch of Google+, Google’s new social network, has gone off without a hitch. After only three weeks, Google+ has pulled in 20 million users according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

The report comes just a week after Google Chief Executive Larry Page said that Google+ had more than 10 million users and that they were sharing and receiving more than 1 billion items a day. That’s impressive growth considering Google has made access to the site by invitation only. Google has yet to market the service to the more than one billion monthly visitors who use its search engine, Gmail and other services.

Although the site’s user base is still not nearly as robust as Facebook and Twitter, it has become be the fastest growing social media platform ever. That’s also why businesses and brands are already anxious to learn how they can leverage the site to reach new customers. Additionally, Google+ has been praised for being a big improvement over Buzz, Google’s previous social networking project.

“The product has been designed to make 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,” said Peter Eckersley, a senior technologist at privacy-advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

It’s still unclear whether people will be abandoning other social media accounts in order to log more time with Google+. Nevertheless, the platform’s staggering growth is certainly an indication that there’s finally a real challenger to upset the dominance of Facebook and Twitter.