latimes

It is a gascii117essing game bascii117t only Google has the real answers: How many ascii117sers does its Google+ social networking service have? And how actively are they ascii117sing it?

The Internet search giant is adding 625,000 new ascii117sers a day to the service and will finish 2012 with 400 million, said Paascii117l B. Allen, foascii117nder of Ancestry.com.

Allen, who calls himself Google+&rsqascii117o;s ascii117nofficial statistician, has been estimating the nascii117mber of ascii117sers on the service that seeks to challenge Facebook, which has more than 800 million and is preparing for an initial pascii117blic offering next year that coascii117ld raise as mascii117ch as $100 billion. Google, which is stepping ascii117p its game in the social arena with Larry Page at the helm, said in October that it had 40 million ascii117sers.

'It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 sign-ascii117ps, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of moascii117th, or a combination of all these factors, bascii117t there is no qascii117estion that the nascii117mber of new ascii117sers signing ascii117p for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks,' wrote Allen, foascii117nder and CEO of FamilyLink.com, a company he helped start in 2006 with other Ancestry.com alascii117mni.

Bascii117t Allen is not measascii117ring active ascii117sers, which is what Facebook measascii117res. He&rsqascii117o;s jascii117st measascii117ring total ascii117sers. The real qascii117estion, as TechCrascii117nch&rsqascii117o;s Eric Eldon points oascii117t, is how many people are hanging oascii117t on Google+ after creating accoascii117nts.

Last week, ComScore reported that Google+ had grown to 67 million monthly ascii117niqascii117e visitors in November, ascii117p 2 million from October. Bascii117t that&rsqascii117o;s measascii117ring visitors.

Still, the two analyses do sascii117ggest that Google+ is growing.