http://9to5google.com/2012/12/06/google-has-activated-half-a-billion-plus-users-235m-active-on-a-daily-basis-and-135m-read-their-streams/#more-57714

Cliffs:  google has 235 million active users of their service, numbers that have just came out.

Twitter had 140 million active users back in march, but the service isn't growing as fast as g+ I mean it's had six years to get to this point.  

Therefore, google+ has taken the number 2 spot.

define active?

i sign into gmail but that also signs me into google plus ... a service i never use.

I have a Google + account, I haven't looked at it for months and it's pretty much the same for everyone I know who tried out Google +.

Love other Google services though like GMail, Google Drive, Google Maps, etc...

The 135m is more accurate, since it's comparable to reading an active Twitter feed.

And # of users is only one factor. Twitter is still more important. If something is really #2 it will be obvious without having to count users.

An analyst from a respected research shop, said a few days ago that google+ is driven by 4 points

1. Android- google+ has an icon on almost all new android phones, so people just need to sign into google and check it out
2. Gmail- when you sign up for a gmail account, a google+ profile is automatically created
3. Google search- when you are signed into google and then use the search function, google+ threads are pulled up as part of the search results, so a percentage of people click on it and get to take a look see of google+
4. YouTube- you can link your YouTube channel to your google+ profile, YouTube is kind of like a social media service anyway and therefore more of its users will be social media users than a random sample.

The definition that I've read since google started using an active user count has been somebody using once a month or more

Do I count even though I only use Gmail? If so, it's basically a phony number, never use any of the other services.

if i count because i use youtube and have to log in with my gmail account i want not to be counted please because i never use g+ and gmail only to log in youtube.

Lol... Google + is nothing. It's the proverbial shit on twitters shoe

Twitter is amazing! Once you follow a good set of people it becomes great. I hardly ever use facebook anymore because of it