Google+ Census: How Many are Really Online?

10.07.2011
It's hard to say how many people are taking for a spin. That is, of course, unless you're Paul Allen.

No, I'm not talking about Microsoft's billionaire cofounder -- I'm talking about .

On Saturday Allen announced via that he is investigating how many users the new service has using a model Census data on how many people live in the U.S. with each surname. He estimates there are around 4.7 million Google+ users in the U.S. He said that number is up from 1.7 million he calculated earlier in the week.

He admits there are some shortfalls to his method when trying to calculate non-U.S. users, but he stands behind his work.

"... I haven't seen a better methodology from anyone else yet about estimating Google+ growth, so I'll continue to work on this one," Allen says. He expects to have a more accurate estimate on Monday.

Another Google+ user, Atul Arora, says in Allen's thread that you can gauge the number of Google+ users by running a for "inurl:plus.google.com/*about site:plus.google.com".