Internet, Google+ | featured news

After a running start, Google+'s growth may be slowing down a bit. A report from Experian Hitwise found both traffic and users' average time on the social network fell last week in the U.S.

Several Google+ users have had their Google accounts — including Gmail, Docs and other services — frozen or purged, with a message telling them that they have violated the company’s Terms of Service. What do these users have in common? Many of them are not using their real, legal names on their profiles, ZDNet reported.

Well, now we know that Google+ is the equivalent of Alaska in the social networking world: At least two sites tracking Google+ users say more than 73 percent are male.

So, based on the buzz, Google+ is the geek-chic social-networking upstart that's going to challenge Facebook, right?

Google took its biggest leap yet onto Facebook’s turf on Tuesday, introducing a social networking service called the Google+ project — which happens to look very much like Facebook.