Google touts 250 million Google+ users and unveils tablet app

Google has revealed it now has 250 million users of its social service Google+ and unveiled several new upgrades to the platform as part of its ongoing efforts to compete with Twitter and Facebook.

The service has been live for one year now and now boasts around a quarter of the user base of Facebook, which recently passed the 900 million mark. Google aims to continue this growth with two new upgrades.

Firstly, the firm has announced the creation of a dedicated tablet application version of the service. This will be available on both Android and iPad devices, in order to meet the growing demand for mobile access to the service.

"More people now use Google+ from a mobile device than a desktop computer, and today's tablet release will quicken this trend," Google senior vice president Vic Gundotra said in a blog post.

"It's designed with the device in mind and it includes a beautiful stream that styles content based on popularity, type and orientation, a ‘lean back' Hangouts experience that's great for the couch or common room [and] crisper text, fuller photos and easily-tappable actions like +1 and comment."

The second major update is a new element of the service called Google+ Events that is designed to make it easier for users to personalise and create more interesting event invitations that can be sent out on the site.

This could prove of use to firms, particularly SMBs, involved in events, marketing and design.

The updates were unveiled during the firm's I/O developer conference where it also revealed its highly anticipated Nexus tablet, manufactured in cooperation with Asus, and the Jelly Bean 4.1 update to Android.