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In a recent interview ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt admitted that it may be too late in the game for Google's new Google+ service to beat social network behemoth Facebook.

In the CNN interview Schmidt revealed his belief that Google had made a mistake not developing its own social network earlier. Speaking at the interview Schmidt clarified:

"Fundamentally, what Facebook has done is built a way to figure out who people are. That system is missing in the internet as a whole. Google should have worked on this earlier."

"I think that's the area where I would have put more resources, developing these identity services and ranking systems that go along with that. That would have made a big difference for the internet as a whole."

The news comes just three weeks after the company rolled out its new Google+ service. The new social network is the company's third attempt to break Facebook's monopoly on the market -- its first two being Wave and Buzz.

Interestingly, during the interview Schmidt declined to comment whether he thought Google+ would succeed where its predecessors had failed.

Instead, Schmidt simply commented: "The lesson to be learned in high tech, you need to move through these new phenomena very quickly and you need to get the details right. Otherwise you're left behind."

The news comes just after Google+ reportedly broke the 10 million users milestone. To date the service has suffered from a lack of female users. The service is still only half-open to the general public, only allowing new users in via invite.