In a blog post on Tuesday, Google's engineering VP Vic Gundotra said that the company's Google+ social network is now in open beta; thereby indicating that anyone can sign up for the service.

Google+, which is being deemed as a Facebook contender, was launched in June; and, till now, only those users could join the service who had been invited on to it either by the current users or by the company's employees.

The announcement about Google+ opening to public is a well-timed one --- coming two days ahead of the Facebook annual conference, f8, where the social network will likely unveil a new digital music service and media platform, in association with several content partners.

That the opening of Google+ to the public marks a big move is evident from the fact that there are already more than 25 million members on the service site; and the number is likely to go past the `100 million' milestone by the end of the year.

Among the high-profile people who are currently the members of Google+ include UK's three political leaders - David Cameron, Nick Clegg, and Ed Miliband - who reportedly opened Google+ accounts last week, in the run up to a party conference season.

However, noting that Google is "nowhere near done" in terms of Google+ as yet, Gundotra said in his blog post: "We're ready to move from field trial to beta, and introduce our 100th feature: open signups."