YouGov has put out some survey results about Google+, and says that Google’s social network is “well positioned” to become the second largest social networking site in the U.S. within a year. That means surpassing MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The firm estimates that 16 million U.S. adults plan to join Google+ over the next year.

For the survey, YouGov looked at a sample of 1,003 U.S. adult residents, which it says are nationally-representative of the U.S. online adult population. They were interviewed from July 29 – August 2. As with most surveys, keep that grain of salt handy (the size of that grain is up to you).

“Google+ is starting off extremely strong,” says Michael Nardis, Head of YouGov Investment Products. “It’s chipping away at engagement levels on Facebook and Twitter.  With Google reporting 25 million accounts already and an estimated 16MM more US adults reporting that they plan to join over the coming year, Google+ can be a threat to both.”

“Google+ is tracing a path similar to Facebook’s initial growth – building excitement in a core group of early adopters,” says Nardis. “For Facebook, it was college students.  For Google+, that path is young, educated, single men who are heavy internet users.”

Here are a couple charts they shared:

Here are some stats they rattled off:

• 13% of adult Internet users in the U.S. have signed up for a Google+ account
• 9% plan to sign up in the next 12 months
• 45% of those signed up report reading content once a day or more (only Facebook is higher here at 62%)
• 46% of those using Google+ report creating content at least once a week (Twitter is at 42%)
• 31% of those who joined report to have abandoned their accounts or not to have created any content yet
• 3 men for every 2 women (vs. 1 man for every 1.2 women on Facebook)
• 43% of membership is 18-29 (vs. 31% for Facebook)
• 59% has a college degree (vs. 37% for Facebook)
• 48% are Single (vs. 33% of Facebook users)
• 30% of Facebook users who already use Google+ plan on cutting down time spent on Facebook this year. 
• 19% of US Internet users are members of LinkedIn (35% of those with household incomes over $120k are members).
• 24% of current LinkedIn members plan to reduce time spent on the network.
• 17% of social media users accept “all” or “nearly all” connection requests
• 60% of users have deleted or de-friended connections.

Google just rolled out over the last few days the ability for Google+ users to post a link on the web, inviting people to join the network. As I said the other day, get ready to see a bunch of links inviting people crossing your Facebook News Feed.

Do you think Google+ will be in second place in social networks within a year?