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by Rosalie Marshall
19 Jun 2012
Google has declared that it has yet to reach the intense period of growth with its social networking product Google+ that has been experienced by competitors such as Facebook and Twitter.
Speaking at the Le Web event in London Google product management vice president, Bradley Horowitz, said time was still on the company's side.
"Many of the most successful social networks took four years to get to the hypergrowth stage. I don't think we have got to that hypergrowth stage. Eleven months in the history of social networking is not a long time."
"As the French saying goes 'nine women cannot have a baby in a month'. Our best days are ahead of us."
Horowitz also said the last user figure given by the Google, when it said in April that the site had 170 million users, was out of date.
"That 170 million figure is now stale. I believe the next earnings call will report numbers that are dramatic and good," said Horowitz.
"Many of things yet to launch will make a dramatic change in [Google+] usage. One of these is the mobile clients we have just released."
Horowitz also announced a partnership with Flipboard that will let the social magazine have access to the Google+ application programming interface (API). This will allow Flipboard users to post updates directly to the social network.
"We want to be thoughtful in how we release APIs. We will move cautiously with a single partnership for now. We want to keep the conversation pure," he said
Horowitz said Google+ would be opened to more partners in the future, but only when it is "good and safe".
Horowitz made other promises on the future of Google+, including that the firm will never post advertising on the social network.
He also said that he believes the value Google+ offers users over other social networks is its Hangouts. Hangouts allow users to video chat with up to nine people.
"Like how [US president Barack] Obama did a hangout to talk to citizens. These are different to any of the services out there."
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