In the midst of Google’s announcement about their results for the 2011 fiscal year, they nonchalantly dropped a pretty juicy piece of info concerning their social networking site:

“Google had a really strong quarter ending a great year. Full year revenue was up 29%, and our quarterly revenue blew past the $10 billion mark for the first time,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google. “I am super excited about the growth of Android, Gmail, and Google+, which now has 90 million users globally – well over double what I announced just three months ago. By building a meaningful relationship with our users through Google+ we will create amazing experiences across our services. I’m very excited about what we can do in 2012 – there are tremendous opportunities to help users and grow our business.”

Did you see what Larry Page did there? “Google+ now has 90 million users globally – well over double what I announced just three months ago.” In three months, Google grew over 200% and is, I think we can officially say, booming. Page included a transcription of his remarks on his Google+ page, where another interesting bit of fact was shared:

I’m also pleased to announce that there are over 90M Google+ users — well over double what I announced just a quarter ago on our earnings call. Engagement on + is also growing tremendously. I have some amazing data to share there for the first time: +users are very engaged with our products — over 60% of them engage daily, and over 80% weekly.

Yup. Definitely booming.

Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google, remarked upon the “stunning statistics” from Page’s talk:

On behalf of the Google+ team, I wanted to thank you for using Google+. Four months ago, when we opened to the public, we were not sure what kind of reception we would receive. Your feedback has helped us build this service, and we can’t thank you enough for your enthusiastic support.

We deeply believe in the power of people. Google can be about pages and people, about information and individuals.

This past quarter we began to simplify the Google experience. Gmail, Android, Chrome, Search, Ads, and YouTube are in the early stages of having deep support for your identity and your relationships. Expect us to deliver something truly beautiful. We’ve only just begun to work on that promise.

Other items of note from Page’s talk:

Say what you want about the ubiquity of Facebook in our lives or the mystique that shrouds the “cult” of Apple/Mac, but Google is stirring so many pots – and very deftly, at that – that they appear to be on track win 2012 and it’s only January. Throw in the fact that as early as next year the sale of Android devices very may well eclipse PCs and you’ll start to believe that, in a few years, these “fiscal earning reports” will simply be called the State of the Union Address by the President of the United States of Google.

Google SVP, Engineering Vic Gundotra wrote in a Google+ post:

For about 80 minutes we ran out of disk space on the service that keeps track of notifications. Hence our system continued to try sending notifications. Over, and over again. Yikes.

Thank you for helping us during this field trial, and once again, we are very sorry for the spam.

Rohan Shah made a good point when he responded: “Vic Gundotra, isn’t it awesome how over 100 people replied in 4 mins on a Saturday afternoon?”

Not a bad sign, considering the service is still in its “limited field trial” phase. Plus it got tons more feedback after that. Right now it’s got 1,643 responses.

Is the problem totally fixed? There have been complaints since Gundotra’s post, though the majority of the feedback was positive – things like “no worries,” “, no problem,” and “you guys are doing an awesome job.” Many seem to simply appreciate the communication – something that has been largely criticized in relation to certain other social networks.

Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering, made the feat official with an announcement on Twitter.  By comparison, it took 90 days to sell out Google I/O in 2009, and 50 days to sell out Google I/O last year.

That shows an impressive increase in Google’s ability to draw a crowd.  It may also bode well for the many different technologies Google’s trying to put in the spotlight this year.

A post on the Official Google Blog explained, "The focus of I/O 2011 will be all about the cloud, and feature the latest Google products and technologies including Android, Google Chrome, App Engine, Google Web Toolkit and Google APIs."

Also, "The Developer Sandbox, which we introduced at I/O 2009, will be back, featuring developers from more than 100 companies to demo their apps, share their experiences and exchange ideas."

Anyway, Google I/O 2011 will be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, if you’re curious, and early bird tickets went for $450 each.  Google sold student and faculty tickets for $150 each.

According to Reuters, Vic Gundotra, a vice president of engineering at Google, announced during a webcast, "We hope and believe that there’s even a chance that we could exceed desktop in the future."

Of course, this isn’t the first time someone representing the search giant has spoken highly of the mobile market; CEO Eric Schmidt and CFO Patrick Pichette, among others, have emphasized its importance before.  Earlier this month, a VP of advertising even claimed that desktops will be irrelevant in three years’ time.

Still, Gundotra’s comment may signify just how much Google is betting on the success of Android and mobile advertising, and how seriously it will take threats posed by Apple, Microsoft, and other companies.

Here’s one last interesting tidbit: with regards to China, Pichette said during the same webcast that the country’s "another great market in which Android should flourish."

Basking In Google’s Light

Vic Gundotra has been a general manager for platform evangelism at Microsoft, spending 15 years with the Redmond company. Business 2.0′s Owen Thomas reports that Gundotra has resigned from Microsoft in favor of their Mountain View-based search competitor.

Thomas cited a statement from Google on their latest employee hired away from Microsoft:

On a blog trivia note, ex-Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble posted that Gundotra hired him into Microsoft, and told Scoble “this might be good for your career.”

Dave Winer followed that train of thought by noting Gundotra “was trying real hard to keep Scoble at Microsoft, but all along he must have been negotiating the job at Google.”

It’s Microsoft’s second significant personnel loss in a week. Martin Taylor, a marketing vice-president with the company, was apparently let go by Microsoft the same day he was supposed to address media questions about Windows Live Messenger.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.