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  Screenshot: Christian Post/Handout
  Screenshot of Google Inc's new social networking service, Google+.

Google+, which has emerged as a serious challenger to Facebook’s crown as king of social networking, has rival Mark Zuckerberg to thank for tens of thousands of followers.

It has emerged that the most popular person on Google+ is the Facebook founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg who as of Tuesday evening had just under 35,000 followers.

Since its launch less than a week ago Google+ has immediately established itself as a genuine challenger to Facebook. However, that has not stopped Zuckerberg from signing up to a new Google+ account to see what his rival was offering.

Although Facebook would not confirm whether the account was genuine, it has been noted that the Zuckerberg account was linked with the Google+ accounts of a number of Facebook executives, indicating it was real.

The description on the profile of the Zuckerberg account stated “I make things.”

Rivalry between the two social media platforms has already revealed when on Tuesday Facebook stepped in to block an add-on for Google’s Chrome browser that gave people a way to import their Facebook contacts into Google+.

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Till now Google+ has only been in an early test phase, and invitations have been limited mainly to technology industry people, bloggers and journalists. Those invited do have the ability to invite other users. However, it has not been revealed who invited the Facebook founder and his colleagues to Google+.