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The Google+ social network has topped 60 million users, according to Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen, who also made the bold prediction late Tuesday that Google+ would reach 400 million users by the end of 2012.
Allen, who calls himself the "unofficial statistician" of Google+, runs hundreds of queries on various surnames on the social network each week. He has been tracking those names since Google first announced that Google+ had reached 10 million users in July.
Google+, the company’s answer to Facebook, got off to a roaring start, hitting the 10 million mark in just two weeks — and that was even before the site was open to the public.
But growth had tapered off, taking three months to reach 40 million users, according to Google’s numbers.
Google’s hasn’t given a more recent count. But Allen has seen a rapid resurgence, estimating that the service hit 62 million late Tuesday.
"It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks," Allen wrote on his Google+ page.
Google’s (, Fortune 500) social network is now adding 625,000 users each day, Allen said.
At that pace, Google+ would reach nearly 300 million users by the end of 2012. But Allen believes that growth will accelerate, enabling it to hit 400 million.
There’s one crucial missing piece in Allen’s analysis: He only cites the total number of people who have signed up for the network, not the number of people who actually use it. People may sign into the service to check it out and never use it again.
Facebook, by contrast, reports that it has 800 million "active users," which are those users that have viewed a Facebook page or have used an application. Half of all Facebook active users log onto the social network in any given day, the social network says.
Google entices users to sign up in its newly redesigned home page, by making Google+ the first option in an ever-present pull-down menu — an option that sits right above search. It’s unclear how many sign up but then never actually use Google+.
The technology and advertising industries alike are watching Google+ very closely, which could yet prove to be a sizable alternative to Facebook. The project is very important to Google, which is trying to overcome its past miscues in the social networking space.
More people visit Google’s network of websites than Facebook each month, but Facebook is killing Google in categories that advertisers care most about: Time spent and pages viewed.
MEXICO, Mo.
OTTAWA
French luxury powerhouse LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton said Tuesday that its revenue grew strongly in the third quarter after a the purchase of jewelry giant Bulgari and a rebound in Japan.
The company behind Dom Perignon champagne and Marc Jacobs said sales rose to euro6.01 billion ($8.28 billion), up 19 percent from the previous quarter.
The biggest jump was in the jewelry and watches division, which doubled its sales from last quarter to euro636 million.
The overall sales were up 17 percent from the same quarter a year earlier payday loans.
The quarter also benefited from strong sales in Hong Kong and Macau and a return to luxury consumption in Japan after its devastating earthquake and tsunami.
LVMH said it was confident that sales would remain strong for the rest of the year.
Renewable energy advocates, dissatisfied with how the state’s 2008 clean power law was implemented, want voters to help strengthen the measure.
P.J. Wilson, director of Columbia-based Renew Missouri, plans to file papers with the secretary of state’s office today as the first official step toward getting a revised a new renewable energy standard on the ballot next fall, he said.
The proposed rewrite of the state’s existing clean energy standard would require investor-owned utilities to get 25 percent of their electric generation from the wind, sun and other renewable resources by 2025. The current law requires 15 percent by 2021.
Just as importantly, it would clarify certain parts of the existing law that have been a source of sharp disagreements between Missouri’s small-but-growing renewable energy industry and the state’s biggest utilities.
In an emailed statement, Warren Wood, Ameren Missouri’s vice president of regulatory and legislative affairs, said the utility was still reviewing a copy of the ballot initiative it received late Wednesday. “It is premature for us to offer an opinion on the impact of this ballot initiative on our customers’ rates,” he said.
Renew Missouri and other supporters must collect almost 100,000 valid signatures from across the state by early May to get the measure on the ballot next fall. First, language for the petition must be approved by Secretary of State Robin Carnahan.
Two-thirds of Missouri voters approved the renewable energy measure three years ago. Polling conducted by Renew Missouri this summer suggested similarly strong voter interest in a law to aid renewable energy development. But not for the same reason, Wilson said.
“I wouldn’t be filing this if I didn’t think it had strong public support,” he said. “But I think the reason for voter support has shifted.”
The selling point then was energy security, he said. Today, it’s jobs.
The 2008 ballot measure drew no organized opposition. But months of contentious debate followed during the administrative rulemaking process at the Public Service Commission. In the end, a little-known legislative committee stripped a controversial provision from rules advanced by the commission.
The change allowed utilities to meet the green power mandate by purchasing so-called renewable energy certificates instead of building wind or solar farms in Missouri or contracting to buy renewable energy from neighboring states my credit score. Utilities can purchase the certificates from out-of-state renewable energy producers and count each of them as 100 kilowatt hours toward their mandated goals.
Renewable energy backers, including solar and wind companies that would have benefited from the rules as originally written by the PSC, balked at the change. Their dissatisfaction jump-started effort to rewrite the law and implement a stronger renewable energy standard.
The renewable standard being proposed by Renew Missouri would require utilities to develop renewable energy in or purchase it from Missouri or at least within the regional power grid.
It would also clarify ambiguity concerning the impact on electric rates. The existing law caps the impact on electric rates at 1 percent. The proposed ballot initiative would prohibit utilities from spending more for green power than they would spend to purchase or generate fossil fuel-based energy.
The rewrite of the law would also eliminate the legislative review of PSC administrative rules and prohibit Ameren Missouri from counting its century-old Keokuk, Iowa, hydroelectric plant toward the green power mandate.
Nationwide, 32 states and the District of Columbia have renewable energy mandates, according to the Department of Energy. Missouri is one of few states with a voter-approved law.
The current law requires utilities to gradually increase renewable energy sales until they reach the 15 percent target in 2021. The proposed goal of 25 percent by 2025 equals the renewable energy target in Illinois.
“It’s pretty middle of the pack,” Wilson, said.
Renew Missouri is recruiting and training volunteers to help collect petition signatures and soliciting donations to support the effort. The has conducted held training sessions around the state in recent weeks, including one at the St. Louis County Public Library in Frontenac on Thursday night.
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A security court in Bahrain on Wednesday sentenced 19 people, including a 16-year-old Iraqi soccer player, to up to five years in prison for taking part in Shiite-led protests against the Gulf nation’s Sunni rulers.
The decision brings the total number of people sentenced this week to at least 81, as Bahrain’s authorities step up prosecutions of hundreds of people arrested in the crackdown on dissent. Bahrain’s majority Shiites claim they face widespread discrimination. More than 30 people have been killed since February in Bahrain’s unrest, which was inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.
On Wednesday, the court sentenced 13 people to five years in prison, and six people to one year terms for alleged attacks during the unrest, including trying to torch a police station, the Information Affairs Authority said in a statement. The verdicts can be appealed.
Family members, journalists and human rights activists attended the hearing, which took place in the Al-Khamees police station, according to the statement.
The detention of the Iraqi teenager, Zulfiqar Naji, sparked angry demonstrations in Iraq and as far away as Canada calling for his release Payday advance. It also prompted the Iraq government to make a plea to Bahrain on his behalf. Naji played for a local soccer club in Bahrain until his arrest.
The player’s father, Abdulameer Naji, said in July that his son was taken into custody from their Bahrain home in April on suspicion of participating in protests. The father has since fled to Iraq but the boy’s mother and several of his siblings have remained in Bahrain.
At least six players for Bahrain’s national soccer team were detained _ many of them beaten and tortured _ during months of political turmoil. One of them was sentenced to two years in prison.
Shiite Muslims represent about 70 percent of Bahrain’s 525,000 citizens, but claim they face widespread discrimination such as being blocked from high-level political and military posts. Protesters demand the 200-year-old ruling Sunni dynasty give up its hold on power and allow a freely elected government.
Forecasters say Tropical Storm Hilary has strengthened in the eastern Pacific south of Mexico and is expected to become a hurricane sometime Thursday.
Hilary has maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph). The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported at 11 p.m. EDT Wednesday that Hilary continues to strengthen over warm waters. Hilary was centered about 95 miles (155 kilometers) south of Puerto Escondido, Mexico, and moving west-northwest at 7 mph (11 kph).
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Ophelia is moving across the Atlantic with top sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph). The hurricane center says little change in strength is expected over the next two days.
Ophelia is centered about 1,065 miles (1,715 kilometers) east of the Leeward Islands, headed west at 15 mph (24 kph).
Bionic ear maker Cochlear has been forced to begin a global recall of the world’s thinnest hearing implants after some stopped working.
The Sydney-based company, which dominates the world’s bionic ear market, said on Monday it was mystified as to why some of its award-winning Nucleus CI500 devices were suddenly shutting down.
The company has begun recalling its entire Nucleus CI500 range, which makes up the bulk of its sales, from shelves after a rise in the number of faults with the CI512 model.
Shares in Cochlear fell 14.68 Australian dollars ($15.21), or 20 percent, to close at AU$57.50 ($59.58), the lowest in over two years.
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