Google+ adds events and new apps for its 150M monthly active users

Google announced some major milestones as well as some fun new toys for its Google+ social network at the Google I/O developer conference today.

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Google+ now has more than 250 million total accounts and more than 150 million monthly active users, Google’s Vic Gundotra announced at the event. More than 50 percent of Google+ users sign in daily, and they also typically spend more than an hour on the site every day.

Google also announced today that Google+ is finally making its way to tablets, starting with Android tablets today and coming soon to the iPad.

The primary Google+ announcement from the main stage today, however, was Google+ Events. Events offers a slick (if you’re used to Facebook Events) invitation feature, a cool (if not too actually useful) “party mode” slideshow featuring pics and videos from the event while it’s in progress, and a comprehensive page for post-event reminiscences.

One thing that wasn’t announced, however, was Google+ History, a feature we learned about from a Googler after today’s keynote had wrapped up. History will allow you to pull in your past updates, statuses, and checkins from other networks to better flesh out your Google+ profile.

Almost exactly one month ago, we saw the launch of Google+ Local, which pulls local business information, ratings, and reviews into the Google search/Google+/Google Places experience.

Around the same time, Google+ for Android got an overhaul that included beautiful new UI elements and the ability to start a video chat Hangout on the go.

And it hasn’t escaped the Mountain View-based mothership that photographers are loving Google+, as well. In fact, they’re one of a few demographics that are truly taking the network by storm. We’ve previously speculated that the search giant is making a bid to overtake Flickr as a photo-sharing destination.

More than its functions as a photo-sharing service or a local recommendations engine, however, Google+ is, as the company sees it, an overarching method that ties together Google’s entire range of consumer products. As we have discussed in the past with Google exec Bradley Horowitz, Google+ was intended to become a unifying login (and a unifying social strategy) for everything from YouTube to Gmail to Reader to Blogger and beyond.

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We’ve seen bits and pieces of this unification. For example, the company’s addition of social results to web search was one of its biggest changes in a decade.

What we’re still waiting to see, however, is how Google+ will impact the online world and how engaging it can become, even as its user count continues to climb.

Photo via The Verge