Google+ officially tops 10 million users

Google's latest social-networking experiment is officially 10 million users strong.

That number, which appeared earlier this week as a third-party estimate, was confirmed today by Google CEO Larry Page, who spent the first few minutes of the company's second-quarter earnings call talking up Google+ and its features.

"I'm super excited about the amazing response to Google+ which lets you share just like in real life," Page said in a statement ahead of the call. Page then kicked off the call by talking up the new property, saying that it's a good representation of the kind of clean and easy to use products he wants the company to be making. Page also noted how features like circles and hangouts mimic real-life human interactions.

Google launched Google+ late last month not even in beta, letting in only a handful of users, who could later invite their friends and family. Page noted that the service remains in a "field trial" mode, and with "a lot of barriers" to use it right now, but that the company is continuing to expand how many have access to it. Page referred to the 10 million benchmark as "a great achievement" for the team that worked on the product.

Beyond raw user numbers, Page said the service has received "a ton of activity" with more than 1 billion items shared and received each day. That's been bolstered by the +1 button, which Page said is now being served up around the Web 2.3 billion times a day.

"We want to make products that everybody uses twice a day, like their toothbrush," Page said during the earnings call. "We certainly think about Plus that way, and just generally having a shared identity experience across Google and its products."

Page is currently the second most followed user on the new service according to Socialstastics.com, a third-party analytics tool that's currently tracking more than 28,000 profiles on the service. Page is second only to Facebook's CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has approximately twice as many followers.