Paul Allen, founder of Ancestry.com, not to be confused with the co-founder of Microsoft, has said on his Google+ page that the new social network may surpass ten million users within the next 24 hours. Zounds!

That’s right folks, ten million users. That is the power of social networking. The irony is that all the hype around Google+ has been spread through Facebook. Just think of what’s appeared in your Facebook feed in the last few days. The chances are good that you’ve either been asked for a Google+ invite, or you’ve asked for an invite.

Allen says that if the invite button is left on, the number of users could reach twenty million by the weekend. He uses a surname-based model to calculate the number of users and he says that it’s quite accurate.

Many an analyst has said that Facebook is just too huge for a new player to enter the market, but it turns out that people love novelty and they love quality, and Google+ presents both.

Click here to see how Allen calculated the figures.

[Source : Paul Allen, via Gizmodo]