Google’s attempt to crack the social networking seems to be fighting an uphill struggle against Facebook, but the company claims Google+ is alive and well, despite reports to the contrary.

Google+ was launched back in June and it was seemingly off to a good start a few weeks later. It gained 10 million users within 16 days and 40 million in 100 days. This made it the fastest growing social network of all time, but the hype eventually wore off and traffic started going down just a month after the launch.

Google’s response was simple. It did not release any stats since mid-October. However, Google still believes the new service offers clear advantages over the competition, since it will allow users to integrate other Google services, namely Gmail and YouTube. Google+ VP Bradley Horowitz argued that the service was still in its infancy and that the concept is sound.

“The concept of Google+ dying, it's a misunderstanding of what we're doing," he said. "We have not even begun, let alone these reports of premature demise."

In related news, US President Barack Obama joined Google+ this week, which seems poignant, as both Google+ and Obama looked quite promising a couple of years ago and now both could be gone by 2013.

More here.