Is Google+ losing momentum?

Google Inc’s new social networking service, Google+, saw fewer US visitors last week, and users are spending less time on the site, signalling its momentum may be slowing, according to Experian Hitwise.

Total Google+ visits dropped about three per cent to 1.79 million in the US in the week ended July 23, compared to the previous week, said Experian Hitwise, which tracks web traffic. Google+ visits rose 283 per cent in the week ended July 16. The average time spent on the site in the most recent week declined 10 per cent to five minutes and 15 seconds, the research firm found.

Google+, an online tool started last month that lets users create and communicate with groups of friends, is the company’s latest effort to challenge services such as Facebook Inc and LinkedIn Corp. Google co-founder Larry Page, who took over as chief executive officer in April, had, earlier this month, announced Google+ had more than 10 million users—less than three weeks after it started.

“We are seeing over one billion items shared and received in a single day,” Page had said on July 14. “So, while we still have a lot of work to do, we are really excited about our progress with Google+.”

Experian Hitwise’s research methods, which rely on visits to websites, don’t include mobile users and third-party application traffic, according to the New York-based company.

Google+, which aims to help users better organise and manage contacts and sharing, began a test version on June 28 by invitation only. Google, based in Mountain View, California, fell $15.30, or 2.5 per cent, to $607.22 today on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have risen 2.2 per cent this year.